SC man charged with fighting police during Jan. 6 Capitol riot intends to plead guilty
An Anderson County man has agreed to plead guilty to charges connected to the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, according to papers filed in U.S. District Court in Washington.
George Tenney will make his actual plea at noon June 30 before U.S. Judge Thomas Hogan.
Tenney is scheduled to plead guilty to civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding. He also faces an enhanced sentence because he fought with police and physically tried to stop them from keeping rioters out of the Capitol, according to court records.
The maximum prison sentence he is eligible for is 20 years.
So far, seven of the 16 people from South Carolina arrested by the FBI on charges related to the Capitol riot have pleaded guilty. Tenney will be the eighth.
Sentences have been handed down in only four of the seven guilty pleas so far.
Those sentences range from probation for non-violent offenders who only stayed a brief time in the Capitol, to 44 months in prison for one defendant who fought with Capitol police.
A statement of facts about Tenney’s upcoming guilty plea said he is a supporter of forme President Donald Trump and he traveled to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, with the intention of taking action to stop Congress from certifying the formal electoral vote certifying President Joe Biden the winner.
Trump and allies had made repeated false claims that he had won the November 2020 presidential election.
“It’s starting to look like we may siege the capitol building and congress if the electoral votes dont (sic) go right,” Tenney posted on Facebook in late December 2020, a time when Trump was rallying his supporters to converge on Washington.
Although Tenney and a friend were only in the Capitol for 13 minutes, during that time he scuffled with police officers who were trying to prevent rioters from entering the building and assisted rioters coming into the building, yelling, “Stand up, Patriots! Stand up!”
Evidence against Tenney includes his Facebook postings, surveillance videos and statements from officers Tenney fought with, according to court records.
Tenney has admitted that he obstructed an official proceeding and interfered with law officers, according to his plea agreement.
In return for Tenney pleading guilty to two criminal charges, the government will agree to drop seven other charges against him, five of which alleged he was committing violent acts.
The 16 men and women arrested from South Carolina are among the more than 840 defendants in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia who have been arrested in what the Department of Justice calls its largest investigation ever.
Tenny was first arrested last July.