During a status conference in his case, an accused Capitol rioter got into a heated exchange with a federal judge.
According to Politico’s Kyle Cheney, the incident began when Josiah Kenyon petitioned U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols for permission to speak during the hearing.
Kenyon retorted, “I have a high enough IQ range to not screw up there, boss,” after Nichols advised him to consult with his attorney first.
According to Cheney, Kenyon then asked Nichols to “acknowledge that he had a right to defend himself if jail guards in DC attempted to assault him.”
“I’m not making any finding one way or another about that,” Nichols responded.
“Okey-doke,” Kenyon said. At the conclusion of the session, Nichols asked Kenyon if he had any other concerns.
“My wife and children are homeless on the street. Have a wonderful day,” Kenyon told the judge.
During the Jan. 6 insurgency, Kenyon is accused of hitting police with a variety of things, including a table leg with a protruding nail. According to the Department of Justice, Kenyon went to the Capitol dressed as Jack Skellington, a character from Tim Burton’s film The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Authorities discovered him hiding out in a travel trailer with a stash of firearms in December and detained him.
“Two Washoe County Sheriff’s deputies, members of the HOPES team assigned to help the homeless, found a woman and two children living in a small, unheated travel trailer on the foothills of Peavine Mountain,” the station reports.
“They came offering help but encountered a woman, who according to their report, was evasive, and reluctant to give her name or her husband’s. She was reportedly suspicious at first that they might be policemen, who the woman said was — unlike sheriff’s deputies — ‘unconstitutional.'”
Kenyon arrived in a camouflaged and modified Ford Crown Victoria at that point. The deputies left after Josiah Kenyon stated that his family would be moving on soon, but afterward opted to do a check on his license plate “on reflection.”
“A traffic stop was set up and Kenyon was arrested on the federal charges, along with his wife, Elizabeth, for child endangerment,” according to the station, after deputies discovered Kenyon was wanted by the FBI.
“Deputies reportedly found an AR-15 rifle, a Glock handgun, ammunition, and other weaponry inside the camouflaged car. The children were safe, but while being supervised spoke in the same sovereign citizen, anti-government rhetoric as their parents. It’s unclear how long they’d been living off the grid, on the run.”
