Jurors reached a verdict late Monday in the trial of Thomas Robertson, a former police officer from Virginia who intended to stop the certification of the 2020 election when he stormed the complex on Jan. 6, 2021 with fellow off-duty cop Jacob Fracker.
Fracker, who entered a guilty plea just before Robertson’s week-long trial in Washington, D.C., began, agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s gigantic probe of the attack in exchange for leniency at sentencing. That decision forced Fracker to testify against Robertson, a man he considered a “mentor” and “father figure” who is now facing up to five years in prison.
Robertson did not testify on his own behalf and though his defense attorney Mark Rollins conceded that the ex-Rocky Mount, Virginia, cop was “absolutely guilty” of entering the Capitol illegally, he argued Robertson never came to D.C. with plans to stop Congress from doing its duty on the path to a peaceful transfer of power.
U.S. attorney Risa Berkower told jurors before they sequestered themselves that just wasn’t so.
They agreed.
Robertson, Berkower successfully argued, put himself in the thick of it on Jan. 6 because he believed former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election and arrived armed and ready to fight.
Robertson’s trial was the second-ever jury trial for Jan. 6 defendants and the verdict Monday marks the second time that the Justice Department has successfully reached a conviction on all counts.
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“I absolutely hate this,” Fracker said as questioning opened last week. “I never thought it would be like this. I've always been on the other side of things. The good guys' side, so to speak."
Robertson, he told jurors, urged him and an unidentified neighbor to travel to D.C. on Jan. 6. Robertson brought a large wooden stick and a trio of gas masks. They went first to the Washington Monument to listen to speeches and then to hear Trump’s speech at the Ellipse before marching to the Capitol.
Once there, things devolved quickly, according to Fracker. As they prepared to breach police barricades around the building’s exterior, they were separated. Fracker got in first and before long the men were reunited inside, where they proudly snapped a selfie.
Fracker told jurors he saw police try to stop rioters when they were outside. He also admitted that he was aware in the moment that he was trespassing. But once inside, he was “full of adrenaline,” and believed if they and other rioters would “make a big enough fuss,” Congress would be forced to stop the proceedings.
The men did not come to any sort of “verbal agreement” to obstruct proceedings that day, Fracker said.
But there was no need to spell it out or say it aloud, he added.
According to NBC, Fracker said the entire mob “pretty much had the same goal” in mind when they arrived, and their group was no exception.
Defense attorney Rollins insisted during closing arguments that Robertson never had an organized plan to stop Congress from certifying the vote. As for the large wooden stick prosecutors say Robertson used to keep Metropolitan Police at bay as he forced his way in, that, according to the defense, was just his walking stick.
A U.S. Army veteran who served as a private contractor in Afghanistan, he was shot in the thigh over a decade ago. Robertson needed it to get around, Rollins said.
But during an earlier point in the trial, when prosecutors heard testimony from officers who were on the scene, they said Robertson wasn’t using the stick to brace himself.
Instead, he was seen holding it in a defensive stance known as the “port arms position” before wielding it against officers.
Fracker said neither he nor Robertson wanted to help the police that were desperately overwhelmed and outnumbered by the mob.
“I think, as a cop, I felt they should have been on our side. Like, marching with us,” Fracker said during examination by Berkower.
There were also questions posed about a generous sum of $30,000 that Robertson sent to Fracker after their initial arrest.
Fracker insisted it was not given to him to keep quiet or secure his testimony. It was meant to keep him afloat after he lost his job with the Rocky Mount Police Department.
The department fired both Robertson and Fracker after their arrests.
Prosecutors also showed jurors several messages Robertson sent long after the insurrection unfolded. One message undercut the claim that Robertson brought the wooden stick to help his mobility.
Describing his physical fitness in a text three months after Jan. 6, Robertson boasted: “I’m 48. My kids are adults and I can still run a 16 minute 2 mile with a 30lb pack. I am as dangerous as I'll ever be.”
Jurors deliberated for just over 10 hours.
Robertson’s trial was the second Jan. 6 jury trial to unfold. Guy Reffitt went first in early March and was found guilty on all counts including obstruction of an official proceeding, transporting firearms amid a civil disorder, being in a restricted area while armed, interfering with law enforcement during a civil disorder, and obstructing justice.
Robertson not only faced charges related directly to his conduct on Jan. 6 but for conduct occurring well after he breached the Capitol.
After his arrest and indictment and while he was on pretrial release, Robertson ordered more than two dozen firearms through a dealer in Virginia, dropping $50,000 on the stash. This violated terms of his release and prosecutors threw him back in jail in July.
It was not immediately clear on Monday night when Robertson would be sentenced.
RELATED STORY: Guy Reffitt, first Jan. 6 defendant to stand trial, found guilty on all counts
