As direct examination of FBI examiner Jennifer “Kate” Cain continued on Wednesday, jurors saw a series of charts that showed the metadata extracted from some of the defendant’s phones, as well as a a handful of Telegram messages that were shared between members of the extremist group, including Jeremy Bertino, on Jan. 6.
Bertino has already pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy.
In the Telegram chat shown to jurors—labeled “New Ministry of Self Defense [MOSD]”— a user tells Bertino, “Storming the Capitol building” in a video message.
The responses came in rapidly: “form a spear” and “holy fuck do it boys.”
As video of rioters storming the Capitol appeared, Bertino would reply, “fucking do it man, let’s go.”
In a message sent by a user in the chat at 1:02 p.m., they urged; “push inside, find some eggs and rotten tomatoes.”
Notably, from the “NEW MOSD” chat, the “eggs’ comment was found only on defendant Zachary Rehl and Ethan Nordean’s devices. The other messages in this stream with Bertino were not. Examiner Cain told jurors the messages that were not found on the device had been deleted and could have only been deleted by the user who posted them.
“If the user had selected just to remove them from their own device, it would still be present on the other two devices and since they weren’t, the conclusion is they removed them from all devices,” Cain said.
Jurors saw a photo that Rehl received on his phone on Jan. 6 and it appeared to be a number of Proud Boys standing inside the Capitol, posing and flashing the “OK” hand gesture, a symbol of white power according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Cain then reviewed some of the metadata that was obtained from defendant Joseph Biggs’ device. A series of photos and videos featured metadata that confirmed the location of their creation and the date: Washington, D.C., Jan. 6, 2021.
Jurors saw one of those videos; it feature Proud Boys walking towards the Capitol, excitedly flashing the “OK” hand gesture again or shouting excitedly.
Another video showed police lined up in riot gear behind a bike rack and protesters confronting them. The video was created on Jan. 6 at 1:16:25 p.m.
This video and 40 to 50 others were deleted from Biggs iCloud, Cain testified.