‘I’d do it again, fight me’
Capitol rioter from Mount Pleasant asks for probation; feds want jail
The government says Samuel Fox, of Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, who stormed the U.S. Capitol and later said he’d “do it again, fight me,” deserves to be locked up for a month for what he did.
Fox, 32, will be sentenced on Friday in the District of Columbia.
He’s one of about two dozen people from Western Pennsylvania accused of breaching the Capitol over former President Donald Trump’s false election fraud claims.
Fox pleaded guilty in November to disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, a misdemeanor.
Prosecutors want U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell to put him behind bars for 30 days and give him three years of probation and a $500 fine, saying he “publicly celebrated the violence on that day and only just recently expressed remorse for his actions, on the eve of sentencing.”
Fox’s lawyer countered that he’s a changed man, sees now that what he did was wrong and is hoping to avoid prison so he can keep running his small moving business.
In late December 2020 and early January 2021, before the Jan. 6 insurrection, Fox indicated on Facebook that he was going to Washington, D.C. to support Mr. Trump.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Franks said that on Dec. 24, he posted that the “worst part of 2020 was seeing so many people be ok with actual voter fraud and . . . I hope Trump starts civil war.”
On Jan. 1, Fox urged others to go to Washington to attend the rally and said “next time I see fireworks go off in DC I want to see them attached to traitor politicians. Unrelated, but see yinz on the 6th.”
He later told the FBI that he drove to Washington and advertised that he could take five others with him. He ended up taking one and said he attended the rally because he thought it was going to be Mr. Trump’s last one and Fox hadn’t attended any others, he told agents.
After the rally, he walked with the crowd to the Capitol because he wanted to see what would happen, he said.
Fox admitted that he saw people breaking in and he went in anyway through a broken window because he knew the riot was a big news event and he wanted to take pictures “to show his kids in the future,” he told agents.
He spent two minutes inside and took a selfie.
The day after the riot, he posted on Facebook: “Al [sic] the lefties pissing and moaning right now can take comfort in the fact we walked into a building that was ours instead of using politics to loot stores. We actually have reasons to be there, not virtue signaling twitter points. Your country is sold to the CCP, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about then you’re the biggest problem, not patriots who wanted to knock and talk to Congress. I’d do it again, fight me.”
He also told a series of lies in later days, Mr. Franks said, claiming that he and other rioters were let in by police and that officers murdered five members of what he described as a “rowdy tour group.”
In April, he reiterated more lies, Mr. Franks said, by describing Jan. 6 as a “walking tour” and saying the only violence had been perpetrated by a “black officer murdering a white woman.”
Fox’s Facebook friends praised him for what he did, calling him a patriot and saying they were proud of him.
Fox initially refused to be interviewed by the FBI and only later agreed to a debriefing. During the interview, Mr. Franks said, he showed no remorse. The government told him he had one more chance to express remorse in a letter to the judge.
A year later, with sentencing at hand, he finally did that, apologizing for his actions and asking for leniency.
Mr. Franks said Fox shouldn’t get it because he “actively spread” lies on Facebook, downplayed the violence, didn’t say he was sorry until the last minute and said he would do it again and has had repeated contact with police in the past.
Fox’s public defender, Mythri Jayaraman, did not defend what he did but said her client is a “loner” who had finally received approval from his peers.
“Unfortunately,” she said, “these accolades were for behavior that was destructive to the very fabric of our democracy.”
She said he now sees that his actions are not worthy of admiration and that he fears others will now look at what he did and think it worth emulating.
She said that he was just a member of the mob who was influenced by the Trump rally, not a leader.
Fox provides for his two young children, she said, so any prison time would harm the moving business he owns and damage the family’s livelihood.
She also described Fox’s upbringing, saying he had few friends and was taunted by classmates and his stepmother because he’s short. As a teen, he became interested in politics and joined the Green Party and later “latched onto” Hinduism after becoming close with a friend who took him to the Hindu Temple in Pittsburgh.
Ms. Jayaraman cited those examples to show that Fox is a follower motivated by peer acceptance.
She said he sees a therapist now and reports improved self-esteem.
She asked for probation or home detention, but no jail.
“Mr. Fox makes this request not only for himself,” she said, “but also for his young children, who would be substantially impacted by any period of incarceration.”