The terms of the agreement are confidential, a Defiance Press spokesman said.
Evans filmed himself entering the Capitol building and urging others to do the same, while yelling at police officers who were trying to control the crowd. At his sentencing, he told Superior US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth that he regretted every day that he was “caught in a moment that led me to break the law.”
But since then, Evans has repeatedly downplayed the violence and destruction and his own role in the riots, as prosecutors noted in a letter to the court. In a radio interview broadcast the day after his sentencing, Evans said that he “will never regret standing up and doing the right thing.”
He has as he described himself as a “political prisoner” and expressed a desire to run for office again. Evans was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 2020 and give up after your arrest last year. Before that, he was known as confrontational. anti-abortion activist that would film staff and patients entering West Virginia clinics.
“Although Evans’ sentence has already been imposed and the government is not here seeking its modification, the speed and degree of change in Evans’ attitude justifies this notice, for the record and for the edification of the Court,” the prosecutor wrote. Kathryn E. Fifield on June 30. presentation.
Other Jan. 6 participants have made similarly contradictory statements about their actions. the first woman sentenced for illegally entering the Capitol, Anna Morgan-Lloyd, apologized profusely in court; the next day, Fox News aired an interview with her downplaying the attack. Since then, Lamberth and other federal judges have expressed skepticism that the remorse shown by the defendants in these cases is genuine.
Lamberth, who had paroled Morgan-Lloyd said in a presentation that his “hope has been… dashed” and subsequently imposed prison sentences on several rioters who pleaded guilty to the same offence.
In sentencing for another troublemaker before a different judge, Morgan-Lloyd’s defense attorney said Fox News had “played” the Indiana grandmother and had written to Lamberth reaffirming his regret.
Court records show that when Evans met with the FBI, he falsely claimed that police let rioters into the building and that he was only wearing a helmet to protect himself from anti-fascists, claims refuted by his own video. But prosecutors said they believed his remorse in those same interviews was sincere. He also told authorities that he did not take the campaign seriously to keep President Biden out of power; he has since claimed that the election was stolen and that federal agents allowed rioters into the Capitol.
A spokesman for the DC US attorney’s office declined to comment. An attorney for Evans was not immediately available for comment.
At Evans’ June 22 sentencing, Lamberth said he sympathized with the father of four but would have ordered twice the jail time if prosecutors had asked.
“You were inciting people and cheering. It’s not like you walked through the building,” Lamberth said. “I have to send a message. I don’t want another riot after the next election.”