Pair first to plead guilty in Jan. 6 Capitol riot

A New Jersey gym owner and a Washington state man on Friday became the first people to plead guilty to assaulting police in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, facing what they acknowledged in plea deals could be three to five years in prison.

Scott K. Fairlamb, 44, of Sussex, N.J., and Devlyn D. Thompson, 28, of Seattle, set potential benchmarks for what at least 165 defendants charged with assaulting or impeding officers could expect if they cooperate.

Fairlamb, a former mixed martial arts competitor, admitted to shoving and punching a police officer, identified in plea papers by the initials Z.B.

“Are you an American? Act like it!” Fairlamb screamed before the attack in a scene captured on video.

Fairlamb entered the Capitol through a kicked-down Senate wing door about two minutes after an adjacent window was broken by rioters about 2:13 p.m., he acknowledged in plea papers.

He admitted to posting videos on social media showing himself screaming expletives about storming the Capitol while standing on scaffolding on the west side of the building and waving a collapsible metal police baton.

Fairlamb pleaded guilty to two of 12 indicted counts, both felonies: assaulting an officer and obstructing an official proceeding of Congress. The first charge is punishable by up to eight years and the obstruction charge by 20 years.

Prosecutors agreed to drop the other counts, which included rioting, trespassing and violent disorder.

Fairlamb's recommended sentence is 41 to 51 months in prison, but is not binding on U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who set sentencing for Sept. 27.

Fairlamb has been held pending trial since his Jan. 22 arrest. In a detention order for Fairlamb, Lamberth wrote, “Even among other rioters, the defendant's aggression stood out.”

Thompson admitted to using a baton to strike at an officer deploying pepper spray during what prosecutors called the most violent confrontation between police and rioters at the Capitol, inside the archway and tunnel of the West Terrace's ceremonial entrance.

Calling Thompson's “an important case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Tejpal Chawla said the defendant was “at the front lines of the most dangerous violence at the Capitol,” striking an officer with a baton and aware that others were assaulting officers with weapons including bear spray, Tasers, javelins, clubs, bats and the officers' own shields.

Thompson admitted to being present in the tunnel for 13 minutes, and left seven minutes before Capitol Police Officer Daniel Hodges was crushed in a contested doorway, Chawla said.

Chawla praised Thompson for turning himself in in January.

But the prosecutor argued successfully for Thompson's immediate detention pending sentencing, also scheduled for Sept. 27.