WASHINGTON – A supporter of Donald Trump, who was one of the first rioters to breach the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, has been convicted of conspiring to kill FBI special agents investigating him for his crimes in the Capitol.
Edward Kelly, 33, on January 5, 2021.
Edward Kelley, who was convicted last week of assaulting law enforcement officers and other crimes during the attack on the Capitol, was found guilty Wednesday on three additional charges: conspiracy to murder employees of the United States; invitation to commit a violent crime; and influencing or retaliating against federal officials through threats.
The murder plot trial, which began Monday, took place in Knoxville, Tennessee. NBC News affiliate WBIR in Knoxville reported that the jury convicted Kelley on all three counts after just an hour of deliberation. Kelley will be sentenced on May 7 in the murder conspiracy case, a month after he is scheduled to be sentenced on April 7 in his Capitol case.
During the riot at the Capitol on January 6, Kelley, an anti-abortion activist, wore a sweatshirt that read TCAPP, which stands for “The Church At Planned Parenthood.”
Kelley’s trial in Knoxville included testimony from co-defendant Austin Carter, who pleaded guilty in November 2023. Carter told authorities that he and Kelley plotted to kill “employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation” in December 2022, months after Kelley’s arrest on January 1, 2023. In six indictments, Kelley provided a list of approximately 37 law enforcement officers assigned to his Jan. 6 case worked, prosecutors alleged.
According to WBIR, Carter told jurors that Kelley thought the country was headed toward civil war and that he wanted to strike first. He initially planned to attack the FBI field office in Knoxville before deciding to target individual FBI employees who had worked on his January 6 case.
Christopher Roddy, who had worked with Kelley in security and tipped off the FBI, also testified at the trial, as did three FBI special agents who said they saw the list as a threat.
Edward Kelley was the fourth rioter to breach the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Kelley, an anti-abortion activist, was wearing a sweatshirt that read TCAPP, which stands for “The Church At Planned Parenthood,” as he became the fourth rioter to breach the U.S. Capitol. During his trial in Washington on the January 6 charges, the government argued that Kelley was armed with a weapon when he stormed the Capitol. While prosecutors illustrated that Kelley wore a gun holster that could be concealed inside his pants and showed what they said was the “print” of a gun, they did not conclusively prove that claim, and it was not central to the case. their case.
During the Jan. 6 attack, prosecutors said, Kelley’s wife messaged him to ask how things were going, writing that she didn’t believe the “fake news.” Kelley encouraged his wife to download Signal, the encrypted communications app, prosecutors said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
