A US federal judge has declined to send a suspect accused of involvement in the Capitol riots to jail, despite ruling that he violated his release orders.
John Sullivan, 26, was accused of violating a previous order from a different judge by buying a smartphone, trying to access Twitter and promoting his organisation “Insurgence USA” on InfoWars and inviting its members to attend his court hearing.
US magistrate judge Robin Meriweather expressed “serious concerns” after Mr Sullivan violated his release order immediately after he was allowed to go home last month. However, she said, she doesn’t believe Mr Sullivan poses any danger to the community or that the court didn’t have any other option to ensure his compliance in future, according to a report published by Buzzfeed.
Earlier, a federal judge in Utah ordered the release of Mr Sullivan for the pending trial under certain conditions, which included not going on social media or doing work for Insurgence USA, a social justice group.
Judge Meriweather ruled that by buying an iPhone and promoting his organisation on InfoWars, he was in violation of the earlier order. She warned Mr Sullivan that if he continues to violate the court order, she will have to take a decision on whether he needs to be sent back to jail.
However, she added: “I don’t believe we are there yet in this case.”
Mr Sullivan was arrested and booked last month under the same charges as other Capitol rioters, however, he says he was not there as a Trump supporter but as a “journalist”. But no credentials were recovered from him that could prove he was reporting for a media outlet.
He filmed a Capitol police officer shooting Ashli Babbitt, a rioter who died during the Capitol violence.
According to court filings by prosecutors, Mr Sullivan's own video footage showed him recording himself making “consistently gleeful exhortations” and supporting the violence.
“We accomplished this s**t. We did this together. F**k yeah! We are all a part of this history,” Mr Sullivan said in his video footage, according to his charging papers.
