Maryland officer who tossed ‘a smoking and sparking object’ at police line on Jan. 6 convicted

The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a press release that a Maryland police officer was convicted Friday for acts he committed during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, “including throwing a smoking and sparking object in the direction of” police.

According to the press release , Justin Lee is 25 and from Rockville. U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden found Lee guilty of two felony offenses: assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and civil disorder, and “misdemeanor offenses of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building.”

Lee is set to face sentencing in November, the release said.

The press release said, according to court documents and “evidence presented during the trial,” on the day of the Capitol riot, Lee “was identified by law enforcement authorities via open-source video as present among a crowd of rioters amassed at the exterior Archway leading to the Lower West Terrace Exterior Door of the Capitol, also referred to as the ‘Tunnel.’”

The release also said authorities, using video, spotted someone who was “later identified as Lee, standing on the steps leading to the Tunnel and committing multiple acts directed at the line of officers, including throwing a smoking and sparking object in the direction of the police line, throwing an unlit (not smoking or sparking) object at police, and holding and pointing a flashlight that appears to be turned on in the direction of the Tunnel entrance.”

Lee became a police officer in the winter of 2022, according to The Washington Post, and had applied to be a part of the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) only a few months after the Capitol riot. A spokesperson for the MCPD previously said to the Post that Lee had been suspended without pay, with the department also making moves to fire him.

The Hill has reached out to an attorney representing Lee and the MCPD.

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