The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Woodstock mom, son get bond on felony charges
Pair placed under house arrest, told to stay in homes.
A nurse from Woodstock and her son, who face felony charges related to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, were granted bond Monday and will be allowed to return home after being held for more than two months.
Lisa Marie Eisenhart and Eric Gavelek Munchel, a Nashville restaurant worker, were among the hundreds who flooded into the Capitol and boasted about it to the press after they emerged. Both were arrested in the days after the attack and had been held without bond despite a Nashville magistrate judge’s order to release them.
That decision was appealed and a district court judge in Washington, D.C., sided with federal prosecutors’ claims that the pair were too dangerous be released before trial.
The mother and son appealed that decision and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last week ordered District Court Judge Royce Lamberth to rehear the bond request immediately. Rather than argue they be kept in jail, prosecutors relented and asked Lamberth to place them under house arrest.
The judge’s order requires Munchel and Eisenhart to stay in their homes, except for a lengthy list of errands including work, school, religious services, medical appointments, attorney and court visits, and other preapproved activities. They cannot possess firearms and must wear GPS monitors and submit to drug tests.
Munchel is prohibited from traveling outside the Middle District of Tennessee; Eisenhart is restricted to the Northern District of Georgia.
The two were among the first wave of accused insurrectionists to be arrested after Munchel was identified by online sleuths who compared photos of a masked man in black tactical gear with photos of the unmasked Munchel taken in their D.C. hotel after the riot. Photos showing Munchel carrying handfuls of plastic wrist restraints through the visitors’ gallery in the Senate chamber earned him the nickname “Zip-tie Guy” by Twitter users who worked in the days following the riot to identify suspects.
Prosecutors argued Munchel and Eisenhart should remain in jail because of their alleged behavior during the attack. According to court documents, Munchel carried a Taser on his hip into the Capitol and the pair urged other rioters to push farther into the building. Prosecutors based much of their evidence on a recording of the event Munchel made with his smartphone, which he mounted to the front of his tactical vest, and interviews they gave to reporters in the wake of the attack.
“The point of getting inside the building (was) to show them that we can, and we will,” Munchel told a reporter for The Times of London. Eisenhart added she would rather “die” than “live under oppression.”
The pair join a growing number of people charged in the Jan. 6 attack who were initially held without bond only to have a judge later send them home. Milton resident Bruno Cua and Americus attorney William Mccall Calhoun both successfully challenged their bond status and have returned to Georgia to await trial for their alleged roles in the unrest.
Attorneys for Munchel and Eisenhart argued there was a “gross disparity in the treatment of these defendants compared to defendants charged with more serious conduct” who had been granted bond. The attorneys also argued the pair posed no significant danger to their communities. The appeals court agreed, pointing out that no evidence was provided showing “Munchel or Eisenhart vandalized any property or physically harmed any person,” which could suggest they posed an ongoing danger.
“In our view, those who actually assaulted police officers and broke through windows, doors and barricades, and those who aided, conspired with, planned or coordinated such actions, are in a different category ... than those who cheered on the violence or entered the Capitol after others cleared the way,” the three-judge panel wrote.
Eisenhart had been held in solitary confinement as one of the few women among the hundreds arrested.