Accused rioter asks for venue change
Tries to get phone evidence tossed
A welder living in Uniontown accused of violently assaulting the U.S. Capitol using mace in support of Donald Trump’s election lies is asking that his case be moved from Washington, D.C., and that prosecutors not be allowed to use information seized from his phone after the FBI arrested him.
Peter Schwartz, a felon from Kentucky who was working in Uniontown, is charged with numerous felony counts in connection with storming the Capitol and using mace on police, then later bragging that he should be in federal prison for what he did.
If he’s convicted, that outcome is almost certain.
His wife, Shelly Stallings, is also charged with violence in the insurrection and last month indicated she intends to plead guilty.
Schwartz and his lawyer, Dennis Boyle, this week asked the D.C. judge in their case to switch any potential trial to another federal jurisdiction, dismiss an obstruction count, bar U.S. prosecutors from using evidence taken from his phone and separate his case from two other accused rioters set to go on trial with him.
The most significant motion is an attempt to get the phone evidence tossed on the theory that the FBI illegally accessed the device by tricking Schwartz.
The Pittsburgh FBI arrested Schwartz on Feb. 2, 2021, at his house in Uniontown on a warrant out of the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Boyle said that agents put him in handcuffs and then told him if he had any contact numbers in the phone, he’d better get them now because they were going to seize the phone.
With his hands cuffed, Schwartz unlocked the phone. As soon as he did, Mr. Boyle said, an agent “shoved Mr. Schwartz into the wall while another agent snatched the phone out of his hands” and walked away with it. Schwartz said the agent was “laughing.”
Schwartz said he told the agents he wasn’t giving them permission to search his phone and never would, and they said they’d get a warrant later. An agent then did a preliminary search of the phone and took screenshots of photos and text messages, Mr. Boyle said.
Two days later agents got a search warrant, Mr. Boyle said, saying in the paperwork that they used Schwartz’s fingerprints to unlock the phone. But, he said, they “neglected to state that Mr. Schwartz was tricked into unlocking his phone and that he did not provide his fingerprint voluntarily.”
Mr. Boyle said the search amounted to a warrantless intrusion into private property in violation of Schwartz’s constitutional rights.
In another motion, Mr. Boyle said the trial should be moved from D.C. because his client can’t get a fair trial there, an argument other rioters have made without success.
Schwartz has the right to be tried by a jury on the evidence alone, Mr. Boyle said, “without being tempted to tar him with the same brush as others who were present at the Capitol grounds or who shared some of his political views.” He argued that it’s too tempting for jurors to lump him in with all the other rioters who have been charged or convicted.
In a third motion, also attempted unsuccessfully by many other defendants, Mr. Boyle asked the judge to throw out one of the counts against Schwartz charging him with obstruction of an official proceeding.
Mr. Boyle said the certification of the Electoral College on Jan. 6 was not really an official proceeding as defined by the law because it was not an “evidence-gathering” event. He argued that the Justice Department is trying to “stretch” the statute beyond its meaning to include the obstruction count.
Judges in other D.C. rioter cases have repeatedly thrown out that claim.
In a final motion, Mr. Boyle also wants his client’s case separated from those of two other men charged along with him and his wife: Markus Maly, of Virginia, and Jeffrey Brown, of California. Mr. Boyle said their cases are not related to Schwartz or his wife, they don’t know them, and evidence of what the others did should not be included in any ca se against Schwartz.
Maly, for example, went on social media after the insurrection and bragged about how much fun it was while admitting to stealing a riot shield from a police officer and posting videos of
what he did, according to the FBI.
Mr. Boyle said Maly’s actions had nothing to do with Schwartz. indicated Aug. 5 that she will enter a guilty plea to all counts.
Schwartz and Stallings live in Owensboro, Ky., but Schwartz had been staying at a rented house in Uniontown while working for a local welding company.
The pair are accused of assaulting police, entering a restricted building, obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder and various other offenses.
Among the FBI’s evidence is footage of Schwartz extending his arm from the crowd and spraying police with mace. He is later seen wielding a wooden baton, according to agent testimony.
After the riot, Schwartz posted on Facebook that the events of Jan. 6 were the “opening of a war.”
A review of his texts also revealed him bragging about throwing a chair at police and instigating the violence, saying “I started Shelly Stallings,that” and “I stole their [expletive] Schwartz’s wife, accompanied and used it on him to the Capitol and them,” a reference to a canister engaged in violence with of mace agents said he him, prosecutors said. She took from officers.