Mainer pleads guilty to assaulting police during Capitol riot

A Biddeford man has pleaded guilty to assaulting police during the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol .

Christopher Maurer, 45, entered his plea on a felony charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers with a dangerous weapon Tuesday at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Chief Judge James Boasberg will hand down his sentence on Nov. 6, 2024.

Maurer is the latest Mainer to be sentenced for their conduct during the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob loyal to Donald Trump attempted to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. Rioters assaulted police officers and caused millions in damage to the Capitol building. The total cost of the riot, including damage, investigations and security upgrades, is about $2.7 billion , according to the Government Accountability Office.

Maurer was among the mob of rioters who amassed on the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol, near an area known as the “Tunnel,” where some of the day’s most violent attacks against law enforcement happened, the U.S. attorney’s office said Tuesday.

There Maurer attempted unsuccessfully to wrest a riot shield from an officer before leaving. He returned about 3:50 p.m. when the mob tried to push through the line of police officers. Maurer grabbed onto a can of chemical irritant held by another rioter. He also threw a “stick-like object” into the Tunnel, where it ricocheted off a wall and struck an officer’s helmet, and whipped officers with a cellphone cord, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

FBI agents arrested Maurer in Maine on Feb. 22, 2023.

More than 1,470 people have been charged for crimes related to the Capitol riot, including more than 530 who allegedly assaulted or impeded police, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

The investigation is ongoing.