Convicted Jan. 6 rioter now found guilty of plotting to kill FBI agents
Blount County Sheriff’s Office
(KNOXVILLE, Tenn.) — A convicted Jan. 6 rioter has now been found guilty of plotting to murder FBI agents who were investigating the Capitol insurrection.
Edward Kelley, 35, was convicted Wednesday in the federal case against him in Knoxville, Tennessee, according to the Department of Justice.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on May 7, and could face a sentence of up to life in prison.
Kelley made a “kill list” of FBI agents who were investigating the Jan. 6 riot, the Department of Justice said in a press release following the conviction.
Prosecutors said he plotted to attack the Knoxville FBI office with “car bombs and incendiary devices appended to drones,” and to assassinate FBI agents “in their homes and in public places such as movie theaters.”
“The safety of our men and women in law enforcement is of paramount concern,” U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III said Wednesday. “There is simply no room in society for those who would engage in this kind of reprehensible conduct and threaten to assassinate FBI agents and others who are honorably serving to uphold the law, and this office will pursue all such threats against civil servants working for the public good.”
Earlier this month, Kelley was convicted on multiple counts, including assaulting law enforcement, at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C., said Kelley was identified in photos and videos from the insurrection, and was seen in an “altercation” with a United States Capitol Police officer “where he and two other men throw the officer to the ground.”
Kelley was seen in the footage pushing against a metal barricade guarded by police to access the Capitol building. He then used a piece of wood to smash a window, then entered the building through the window, prosecutors said.
While inside the Capitol, Kelley confronted U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, and was also spotted in the Senate Gallery, according to prosecutors.
He is expected to be sentenced in Washington, D.C., federal court on April 7.
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — Andrew Lester, the Kansas City man charged in the April 2023 shooting of Ralph Yarl after the teenager mistakenly went to the wrong house, is fit to stand trial in February 2025, a judge said on Tuesday, according to Kansas City ABC affiliate KMBC.
The ruling came after the judge reviewed the findings of Lester’s mental exam, which he ordered last month after Lester’s attorney argued that the 86-year-old’s mental and physical capacity have diminished.
ABC News reached out to Lester’s attorney Steven Salmon for comment.
In October, a Clay County judge rescheduled Lester’s trial, which was initially set for Oct. 7, to begin on Feb. 18, 2025, pending the results of the mental evaluation. That exam was ordered by the judge after Salmon filed a motion requesting it, according to court documents obtained by ABC News.
In the motion, Salmon claimed that Lester, who is 86, is facing health conditions that could impair his ability to understand legal proceedings or assist in his defense at trial.
He said in the motion that Lester has lost more than 50 pounds, experienced issues with his memory and has exhibited confusion surrounding the details of the case. He also noted that Lester had also suffered a broken hip, heart issues and hospitalization since the case began.
Salmon also noted that Lester has faced “stress” due to “overwhelming media attention, as well as death threats and other unwanted attention, making it difficult for him to interact socially with anyone.”
Lester was charged with one count of felony assault in the first-degree and one count of armed criminal action, also a felony, in the shooting of Yarl, a Black teenager who mistakenly went to Lester’s Kansas City home after arriving at the wrong address to pick up his twin brothers from a play date on April 13, 2023.
Lester, who is white, pleaded not guilty later that month and was released on a $200,000 bond.
Yarl, who was 16 at the time, was shot in the head and in the right arm, by Lester, according to police. The now 18-year-old suffered a traumatic brain injury, his family previously told ABC News.
According to a probable cause statement obtained by ABC News, Lester told police that he “believed someone was attempting to break into the house” and grabbed a gun before going to the door because he was scared.
Yarl opened up about the shooting in an exclusive interview with Good Morning America co-anchor Robin Roberts in July 2023, where he reflected on his recovery and the harrowing experience.
“He points [the gun] at me … so I kinda, like, brace and I turn my head,” Yarl told Roberts. “Then it happened. And then I’m on the ground … and then I fall on the glass. The shattered glass. And then before I know it I’m running away shouting, ‘Help me, help me.'”
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday declined to say if he’s been in touch with Russian President Vladimir Putin since he left the White House but said it would have been smart if he had.
“Well, I don’t comment on that, but I will tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing,” Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg Editor-In-Chief John Micklethwait at the Chicago Economic Club. “If I’m friendly with people, if I have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”
Trump’s interactions with Putin have been the source of speculation since journalist Bob Woodward’s book reported that the two have communicated multiple times since Trump left the presidency in early 2021.
Throughout his presidency, Trump praised Putin, including saying he believed Russian intelligence over the U.S. intelligence community with regard to Moscow’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 election.
Trump last week flatly denied during an interview with ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl that the two leaders had recently been in touch.
“So, you haven’t spoken to him since you left the White House? Karl asked Trump. “No, I have not. That’s false.”
Despite repeatedly touting his close relationship with Putin in the Tuesday interview, Trump insisted he was tough on him, again saying he terminated the Nord Stream II pipeline.
“I said I don’t comment on those things,” Trump said when Micklethwait repeatedly followed up.
Trump also insisted that the 2020 election ended with a peaceful transition of power despite the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a pro-Trump mob on the U.S. Capitol.
“People were angry,” Trump said of the reaction to the election results before noting that he traveled home to Florida the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated.
“And it was love and peace. And some people went to the Capitol and a lot of strange things happened there. A lot of strange things with people being waved into the Capitol by police, with people screaming, ‘Go in,'” Trump said.
Looking forward to a possible second Trump administration, the former president defended his plans to slap significant tariffs on many imports, which critics have said will amount to a sales tax on American consumers.
Micklethwait opened up the conversation with a critique from multiple economists — a concern that his proposals for tax cuts would raise the national debt by trillions. Trump reiterated his claim that a major growth from his proposals would make up for the cuts, saying the auto industry and other factories will come back to the United States.
“We’re all about growth. We’re going to bring companies back to our country,” Trump said. “And we’re going to bring the companies back. We’re going to lower taxes still further for companies that are going to make their product in the USA.”
Trump claimed that he’s not going to allow foreign companies to sell a single car in the United States, throwing out self-admittedly random numbers for tariffs like “100%, 200% or 2,000%.”
“The higher the tariff, the more likely it is that the company will come into the United States and build a factory in the United States so it doesn’t have to pay the tariff,” Trump said.
(LOUISVILLE, Ky.) — A jury on Friday found former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison guilty of violating Breonna Taylor’s civil rights during a fatal botched police raid, in a retrial of the federal case against him.
The guilty verdict came hours after the jury acquitted Hankison of a second count of violating the civil rights of three of Taylor’s neighbors, who lived in an adjacent apartment that was also struck by gunfire during the raid. After the partial verdict was delivered, jurors, who remained deadlocked on the count specifically related to Taylor, were instructed by the judge to continue deliberating.
The jury returned a guilty verdict on that count shortly before 9:30 p.m., according to Louisville ABC affiliate WHAS.
Family and friends of Taylor hugged each other and cheered after leaving court late Friday night.
Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Tamika Palmer, Taylor’s mother, thanked prosecutors and jurors. “They stayed the course,” Palmer said of prosecutors, who retried the case after Hankison’s first federal trial ended in a mistrial last year when the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision after deliberating for several days.
As deliberations this time around stretched late into the evening Friday, Palmer said she began to feel defeated. “The later it got, the harder it got, and I’m just glad to be on the other side,” she said.
“Now, I just want people to continue to say Breonna Taylor’s name,” her mother said.
Taylor was fatally shot during the March 2020 raid. The three officers fired dozens of rounds after her boyfriend fired one round at them, striking one of the officers.
Hankison fired 10 rounds through Taylor’s sliding glass door and window, which were covered with blinds and curtains, prosecutors said. Several of the rounds traveled into Taylor’s neighbor’s apartment, where three people were at the time. None of the 10 rounds hit anyone.
Prosecutors argued Hankison’s use of force was unjustified, put people in danger and violated the civil rights of Taylor and her three neighbors. The indictment alleged Hankison deprived Taylor of the right to be free from unreasonable seizures and deprived her neighbors of the right to be free from the deprivation of liberty without due process of law.
Several witnesses, including Louisville’s current police chief, testified during the trial that the former officer violated Louisville police policy requiring officers to identify a target before firing, according to The Associated Press.
The defense argued during the trial that Hankison had joined a poorly planned raid and that he fired his weapon after believing someone was advancing toward the other officers, the AP reported.
The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
The plainclothes officers were serving a warrant searching for Taylor’s ex-boyfriend, who they alleged was dealing drugs, when they broke down the door to her apartment. He was not at the residence, but her current boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, thought someone was breaking into the home and fired one shot with a handgun, striking one of the officers in the leg. The three officers returned fire, shooting 32 bullets into the apartment.
The original indictment alleged Hankison had also violated Walker’s civil rights, though Walker was removed from the charge at the beginning of the retrial.
The retrial marked the third trial for Hankison, following the initial mistrial as well as a state trial in 2022, in which he was acquitted of multiple wanton endangerment charges.
Like in his previous trials, Hankison took the stand during the retrial, getting emotional at times over two days of testimony, according to WHAS, the ABC affiliate in Louisville covering the case in the courtroom.
Hankison told the jurors he was “trying to stay alive, [and] trying to keep my partners alive,” according to WHAS.
Hankison insisted “the only person my bullet could have struck was the shooter,” saying there was “zero risk” of hitting anyone outside the threat, according to WHAS.
He said that night was the first time he fired his gun in nearly 20 years of policing, according to the AP.
Hankison was fired from the Louisville Metro Police Department for violating department procedure when he “wantonly and blindly” fired into the apartment.
The two other officers involved in the raid were not charged. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron called Taylor’s death a “tragedy” but said the two officers were justified in their use of force after having been fired upon by Walker.
