Oath Keepers lawyer gets year in prison in one of last Jan. 6 sentencings before Trump return

An attorney who represented the Oath Keepers was sentenced to a year in prison over her role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, at a proceeding Friday that marked one of the final riot sentencings before President-elect Trump returns to the White House.

Kellye SoRelle, a Texas woman who once served as general counsel for the right-wing extremist group, was a close confidant to founder Stewart Rhodes as he plotted to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to President Biden.

But before a judge Friday, she said through tears she “deeply regrets” her association with both Rhodes and the Oath Keepers.

“I totally and empathetically reject any ways to change the government other than the peaceful electoral process,” she said.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta acknowledged SoRelle’s remorse but said her role in supporting the extremist group’s plan to violently overturn the election results and her subsequent efforts to help them cover it up is “not something I can overlook.”

He said she’s “quite fortunate” the government did not charge her with sedition because she “very well could have been.”

“You’ve done a lot of damage to the country, Ms. SoRelle,” Mehta said.

SoRelle pleaded guilty in August to entering and remaining on restricted grounds and seeking to corruptly persuade others to destroy evidence. She initially faced four criminal counts, the other two linked to an obstruction statute that was narrowed by the Supreme Court and were later dismissed as part of her plea agreement.

During Rhodes’s 2022 seditious conspiracy trial, prosecutors showed evidence that SoRelle — at Rhodes’s apparent direction — ordered members of the group to “clam up” and “not say a damn thing” about their participation in the riot. She also urged them to “get busy” deleting any evidence of it.

During her plea hearing last summer, she told Mehta that she wrote at least one of the messages herself, but that Rhodes was “doing his own thing” after she allowed him to use her phone for the purpose of directing other Oath Keepers to destroy evidence.

Rhodes testified during his trial that the directive to delete evidence came from SoRelle, but prosecutors claimed he used her phone to distance himself from incriminating activity.

SoRelle emerged as a key link between pro-Trump and “Stop the Steal” groups after the 2020 election, serving as counsel to Latinos for Trump and as a member of Lawyers for Trump in addition to her role for the Oath Keepers.

She drove to Washington with Rhodes and stood by as he purchased $20,000 worth of firearms and equipment on the way there. She was present during a parking garage meeting attended by both Rhodes and Proud Boys national chair Enrique Tarrio the day before the Capitol attack. And she joined Rhodes on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6 but stayed outside the building.

Rhodes and four other Oath Keepers were convicted of sedition for plotting to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Rhodes, who was sentenced to 18 years in prison, has signaled interest in a pardon from Trump, which the president-elect has neither welcomed nor ruled out.

SoRelle was among the last Oath Keepers affiliates to face charges. She was initially set to be tried alongside two others with ties to the group but was deemed not competent for trial by evaluators for both the defense and prosecution.

She spent several months in the Bureau of Prisons’s custody for competency restoration before the agency determined she was fit for trial in February. She was slated to stand trial in November before taking a plea deal.

Her attorney, Horatio Aldredge, suggested Friday that her mental health issues made her more prone to “manipulation” by Rhodes, whom Mehta agreed “took advantage” of her “vulnerability.”

“You were under his sway, but it doesn’t excuse all of it — it doesn’t excuse anything,” the judge said.

SoRelle is one of the final Jan. 6 defendants to be sentenced before Trump returns to the presidency.

Mehta, the judge, noted that a peaceful transfer of power was “just days away” but did not make any reference to the president-elect's vows to pardon scores of rioters. In an offhand remark, the judge referenced the Capitol attack as an event that will “hopefully not be forgotten any time soon.”

The last Jan. 6 sentencing Friday — before Trump’s inauguration Monday, which falls on a federal holiday that closes the courts — is scheduled to be that of Andy Steven Oliva-Lopez, an Oregon man who pleaded guilty in September to assaulting law enforcement during the riot.

Topics

Navalny Lawyers Sentenced to Years in Prison

Three lawyers who defended the Russian opposition leader before his death were sentenced to up to five years as the biggest crackdown on dissent since the Soviet era deepened.
The Wall Street Journal - 8h
Russia sentences Navalny lawyers to years behind bars

Yahoo News - 9h
Russia sentences Alexey Navalny's lawyers to years in prison

Russia sentenced three lawyers who had defended Alexei Navalny to several years in prison for sharing his messages from prison with the outside world.
CBS News - 11h
Last defendant from first Oath Keepers Jan. 6 trial sentenced to time served

The final defendant from the first Oath Keepers trial was sentenced Friday to time served for conduct stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Thomas Caldwell, a U.S. Navy veteran from ...
The Hill - 6d
Ex-FBI informant who fabricated bribery story about Bidens gets 6 years in prison

Alexander Smirnov had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about a phony bribery scheme that prosecutors say was an effort to influence the 2020 election.
NBC News - Jan. 9
Ex-officer who stormed Capitol with Proud Boys on Jan. 6 sentenced to prison

A former police officer and Proud Boys member was sentenced on Wednesday to 14 months in prison for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after the 2020 presidential election. U.S. District Judge ...
The Hill - Jan. 8
‘One of the Faces of Jan. 6’

What happened to the rioter who put his boot on a desk in Nancy Pelosi’s office.
The New York Times - Jan. 7
Trump lawyers push to halt Jan. 10 hush money case sentencing

President-elect Trump’s legal team urged a judge to hold off on sentencing him on Jan. 10 in his New York criminal conviction ahead of his inauguration. Judge Juan Merchan ruled last week that ...
The Hill - Jan. 6
Jan. 6 accountability falters as Trump return nears

The prospect of accountability for President-elect Trump and those who played a role in the storming of the Capitol is dimming as he’s set to take office and the GOP garners control of Washington — ...
The Hill - Jan. 5