Federal prosecutors are recommending a mere six-month prison sentence for controversial Jan 6 defendant Ray Epps. Set to be sentenced next week, Epps submitted a guilty plea for a slap-on-the-wrist misdemeanor charge in September, despite having claimed to have “orchestrated” the violence in 2021.
Prosecutors filed a sentencing memo on Tuesday arguing that Epps should receive just six-months for his attempts to provoke the storming of the Capitol building. Other Jan 6th prisoners have suffered years in jail, including solitary confinement, already. Some are facing decades in prison.
Epps was widely suspected of being an agent provocateur working on behalf of the authorities, but prosecutors denied this, stating: “Other than his four years in the Marines, Epps has never been a federal agent.”
Prosecutors also say Epps attributed the rioting to undercover Antifa members in the sentencing memo.
Last year, Epps launched a defamation lawsuit against Fox News, alleging that the network and its former host, Tucker Carlson, presented him as a key instigator of Jan 6, damaging his reputation and livelihood.
Former Capitol Hill Police Chief Steve Sund, however, has said Carlson was not “crazy” to question to question Epps’s role on Jan 6, adding that it also “raises concern for me”.
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