A Jan. 6 Defendant Could Go To Jail For Streaming

Authored by buzzfeednews.com and submitted by First_Approximation

WASHINGTON — Prosecutors want alleged Capitol rioter Douglas Jensen sent back to jail, accusing him in a new filing Thursday night of committing “egregious” violations of his pretrial release conditions not only by repeatedly accessing the internet but also by doing so specifically to watch election fraud conspiracy theory videos.

Jensen had been in jail for months following his arrest in January in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection. He’s accused of leading a mob of rioters who chased US Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman through the Capitol and of carrying a knife in his pocket at the time. In July, however, a judge agreed to release him over the government’s objection, imposing a strict set of conditions that Jensen had to follow if he wanted to go home.

Those conditions included a prohibition on using devices with internet access, including cell phones. But according to the government, 30 days after he was released from jail, a court officer assigned to check on him arrived at his house and found Jensen in his garage listening to news on a WiFi-connected iPhone through the video platform Rumble. The government didn’t say what exactly Jensen was listening to but included a link to a Washington Post article that described how the site was popular among conservatives.

More than that, though, the government described how Jensen also eventually admitted to the pretrial services officer that he’d spent two days watching a “cyber symposium” hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of the most prominent and prolific proponents of the election fraud conspiracy theories and lies that fueled the Jan. 6 riots.

Jensen was a self-described follower of the QAnon collective delusion, a fact that the government focused on in arguing to keep him behind bars. His lawyer had countered that Jensen realized the error of his ways after six months in jail, writing in June that “he feels deceived, recognizing that he bought into a pack of lies.”

r4ygun on August 21st, 2021 at 00:16 UTC »

If this was for like any other crime/incident, he would have had his ass put in jail immediately after violating and they would sort it out in a hearing after.

I don't understand how he is still on the street now.

First_Approximation on August 20th, 2021 at 19:45 UTC »

The guy's condition of release was not to access the internet

But according to the government, 30 days after he was released from jail, a court officer assigned to check on him arrived at his house and found Jensen in his garage listening to news on a WiFi-connected iPhone through the video platform Rumble.

“Jensen’s swift violation confirms what the Government and this Court suspected all along: that Jensen’s alleged disavowal of QAnon was just an act; that his alleged epiphany inside the D.C. Jail was merely self-advocacy; and that, at the end of the day, Jensen will not abandon the misguided theories and beliefs that led him to menacingly chase U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up the Senate staircase on January 6, 2021,” Assistant US Attorney Hava Mirell wrote.

W_AS-SA_W on August 20th, 2021 at 15:47 UTC »

Defense is going to say, since six months didn’t produce any changes in him it’s doubtful that 6 years will produce any changes in his behavior and then petition the court for dismissal of charges.