Fort Mill man will plead guilty in Jan. 6 Capitol riot; SC Citadel cadet delays decision

A lawyer for one South Carolina man said Monday that his client will plead guilty to charges connected to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

And another alleged rioter, a cadet at The Citadel, will get another two months to decide whether to plead. By then, he will have finished his sophomore year at the state military college.

Elliott Bishai of Fort Mill will formally plead guilty at an April 25 hearing, attorney Donald Brown said Monday at a virtual hearing before U.S. Judge Tanya Chutkan. The plea agreement has not been made public.

That will make Bishai the eighth of 12 South Carolinians so far charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot either to plead guilty or to announce intentions to plead guilty to criminal charges against them.

Citadel cadet Elias Irizarry, who faces several charges in the Jan. 6 riot, will have until June 1 to make a decision on whether to go to trial.

The additional time will give Irizarry a chance to finish his sophomore year, which ends around May 8, Irizarry told the judge.

The Citadel had no immediate comment.

A third man who traveled with Irizarry and Bishai to the Capitol, Grayson Sherrill of Gaston County, North Carolina, will appear at the June 1 hearing with Irizarry.

The judge said she hopes Sherrill and Irizarry will decide whether to go to trial by the June 1 date.

Before she takes Bishai’s guilty plea on April 25, the judge is likely to engage in a lengthy question-and-answering session with Bishai, Chutkan indicated Monday.

Indictments said men disrupted Congress on Jan. 6

Irizarry and Bishai, both of the Fort Mill area in York County, were in the Civil Air Patrol in Gaston County, where Sherrill lives.

Irizarry and Bishai were offered plea deals by the prosecution in December. At that time, lawyers for both men said they wanted to review them. Chutkan had hoped they would make a decision by Monday’s hearing.

In a Dec. 15 indictment, both men were charged with disrupting a session of Congress, disrupting the orderly conduct of government business, disorderly conduct in a restricted federal building, demonstrating in a Capitol building and entering and remaining in a Capitol building. All are misdemeanors.

Sherrill faces the same charges, with additional charges of interfering with a law officer and assaulting a law officer with a metal pole. Sherrill was arrested in early March of last year.

Bishai and Irizarry were arrested by the FBI in March 2021 and were arraigned in federal court in Columbia, where assistant U.S. Attorney Elliott Daniels told a magistrate judge that evidence in the case showed they entered the Capitol through a broken window with a mob numbering in the hundreds.

”There is no question that they knew it was wrong ... and they knew it was a crime,” Daniels told Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett at their hearing.

Daniels said surveillance videos shows both men entering the Capitol through a window that others in the mob had broken out. Evidence against the two men includes numerous videos and photos of the two inside the Capitol, Daniels said.

Photos in the court records also show Irizarry carrying a metal pipe and wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat. Bishai wore a red hat.

The Jan. 6 riot halted Congress’ joint session to certify the 2020 election of President Joe Biden and caused U.S. House and Senate members to flee. The certification was the last step in formalizing Biden’s election.

Former President Donald Trump and associates had for weeks beforehand made false and unfounded claims that Democrats had committed massive voter fraud and the election had been stolen. Court actions and investigations into events on Jan. 6 are playing out in several arenas and have so far proved no massive voter fraud.

More than 775 defendants have been arrested in nearly all 50 states in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, which includes more than 245 people charged with violent offenses on that day. Approximately 140 law officers were assaulted on Jan. 6 at the Capitol, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. It is the department’s largest criminal investigation in history.

A bipartisan U.S. House select committee is investigating the causes of the riot and whether there was any coordination, and how much, between the rioters, the White House and members of Congress who were seeking to delay certification of Biden’s election.

The status of the cases of South Carolina’s nine other Jan. 6 Capitol riot cases:

▪ Andrew Hatley pleaded guilty to demonstrating inside the Capitol and in December was sentenced to probation.

▪ Nicholas Langeurand of Little River pleaded guilty to assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers with a dangerous weapon and sentenced to 44 months in prison in January.

▪ James Lollis of Greer pleaded guilty to demonstrating inside the Capitol and in February was sentenced to three months home detention.

▪ John and Stacie Getsinger, a married couple from Hanahan, will be sentenced on April 21. They have pleaded guilty to demonstrating inside the Capitol.

▪ Paul Colbath of York County has pleaded guilty to demonstrating inside the Capitol and will be sentenced April 6.

▪ William “Robbie” Norwood III of Greer may decide at an upcoming May 5 status conference to plead guilty or go to trial. He faces multiple charges including stealing government property, obstruction of an official proceeding, remaining in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a restricted building, entering and remaining in certain Capitol rooms.

▪ Derek Gunby of Anderson County has a hearing set for April 19 to decide whether to plead guilty or go to trial. He is charged with unlawfully entering Capitol grounds, disrupting the orderly conduct of government business and being disruptive in a Capitol building.

▪ George Tenney III, of Anderson, is slated to plead guilty Wednesday. He was indicted in October on nine charges including assaulting a law officer and engaging in acts of violence inside the Capitol.

This story was originally published March 28, 2022 at 12:44 PM with the headline "Fort Mill man will plead guilty in Jan. 6 Capitol riot; SC Citadel cadet delays decision."