WASHINGTON – George Tanios, one of two men accused of conspiring to assault police officers during the January 6 uprising, including Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick, will remain behind bars pending trial, a judge decided on Monday. .
Tanios and his co-defendant, Julian Khater, are accused of assaulting Sicknick and two other officers on Capitol Hill. So far, the case has not provided more concrete information about how Sicknick died. Khater is accused of implanting a chemical spray and coordinating with Tanios to bring him to the Capitol that day. The two men are not charged with killing Sicknick, and the prosecution documents do not link the alleged assault to his death. The US Capitol Police did not disclose the cause of death.
Sicknick’s death was barely mentioned during Monday’s detention hearing. Assistant prosecutor Sarah Wagner did not mention this as part of her pleas to keep Tanios in prison. One of the only references to the policeman’s death was when Tanios’ lawyer, L. Richard Walker, asked an FBI agent involved in the investigation if he interviewed the three officers that Tanios and Khater are accused of plotting to assault. After a brief pause, the agent replied that he only interviewed two of them because one was “deceased”.
U.S. District Judge Michael Michael Aloi announced that he would immediately keep Tanios behind bars pending trial after hearing his family’s tearful arguments and testimonies. The judge said he believed the Capitol insurrection was the result of a culture “radicalized by hatred” and a refusal to accept the results of the presidential election. He said he did not understand what attracted anyone to participate in such an event, and it worried him “deeply” as he considered whether he would let Tanios go home while his case was pending.
“My obligation is to the safety of our community, and I think I have never seen anything happen in a way that would be more dangerous for our community,” said Aloi. “I have no doubt that, in your own way, Mr. Tanios, you chose to be a part of this.”
Walker indicated that they would appeal Aloi’s decision and at times clashed with the judge over how much he could use Monday’s detention hearing to investigate the government’s evidence. Tanios, who owns a cafeteria in Morgantown, West Virginia, was arrested on March 14. He made his first appearance in court in his home state, but his lawyers can now appeal the issue of detention to a federal district judge in Washington, DC, where the case – along with the rest of those on January 6 – is being handled.
Wagner presented evidence on Monday that Tanios had entered a firearms store in West Virginia on January 5 and bought two cans of bear spray and two containers of pepper spray. She said a store manager told investigators that Tanios had asked about buying a pepper ball launcher, but the manager said he could not legally carry him to Washington, DC. She said investigators found an empty can of chemical spray at Khater’s house and two cans of bear spray and a container of another chemical spray at Tanios’s house. Wagner also said the government had evidence that Tanios was on the phone with Khater at the time he went into the store to buy the sprays.
Wagner also showed videos of the Capitol on January 6, including one that the government claimed showed Khater asking Tanios and Tanios for “that bear shit” saying no because “it was too early”. In another video, a policeman wearing a blue uniform, which Wagner identified as Sicknick, is seen walking and rubbing his face in what appears to be an almost deserted area in front of the Capitol building. Officers were temporarily blinded and unable to perform their duties, said Wagner; one reported crusting under the eyes and required treatment from a dermatologist three weeks after the insurrection.
The government also argued that Tanios posed a flight hazard; Wagner said an informant said Tanios’ family planned to try to take him to Lebanon, where they have connections, if he were released. Wagner did not share further details about this allegation, however, and Tanios’ mother denied it when questioned by one of his lawyers.
Wagner did not submit the testimony of the FBI agent who signed the statement in support of Tanios’ arrest. She objected when Walker argued that he should be allowed to question the agent. The judge granted Walker’s request, but stopped him after he started asking a series of questions about the evidence that supports each count that Tanios is accused of. A grand federal jury returned a charge of 10 charges on March 19.
Tanios’ lawyers presented several character witnesses, including his mother, his longtime partner and the mother of his three young children, his sister and his friends. At the end of the hearing, Aloi said that he took into account how difficult detention was for a person’s family, adding: “The context of everything that happened that day and earlier is what informs me in my decision making, and I think it needs to. “He cited government evidence on Tanios buying cans of chemical spray, saying” there was no good reason “to bring them to Capitol Hill.
“This is not a weekend visit to see the flowers in DC,” he said.
The judge cited a sermon by Martin Luther King Jr. about how the greatest danger facing civilization was an “atomic bomb that lies in the hearts and souls of men, capable of exploding in the most vile of hatred and the most damaging selfishness”. He questioned why Tanios and Khater did not turn around and returned home after seeing protesters trying to attack a police line in front of the Capitol.
“The fact that they weren’t all thinking about it is just scary for me. And that was a choice. Choices along the way, ”said the judge.
He continued later: “I fight because I don’t know if that represents who you are, Mr. Tanios … but what is it that causes this behavior? And all I can think of is that there is something that causes so much hatred, such irrational behavior, such a desire to attack the country and the officers in such a way that it gives me little confidence that it will stop ”.
Khater is in prison pending an unscheduled detention hearing.