FILE – Rioters loyal to President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021.
Jose Luis Magana / AP
Two Pacific Northwest men are the latest to face prison time after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol – one from Clark County, Washington, and the other from Clackamas County, Oregon.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, 27-year-old Milwaukie resident Andy Steven Oliva-Lopez drove across the country to take part in the “Stop the Steal” rally that had been promoted by then-President Donald Trump.
After the rally, he walked toward the site of the riots that were then unfolding, prosecutors said in a press release. While wearing a full-face respirator mask, Oliva-Lopez sprayed orange bear spray at the faces and heads of police officers outside the Capitol building, prosecutors said.
Oliva-Lopez entered a guilty plea Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on a federal felony charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 17, 2025.
Yacolt, Washington resident Benjamin John Silva, 37, meanwhile, was sentenced on Tuesday to four months in prison. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder.
According to court documents, he was part of a group of rioters who participated in a “heave-ho” push against a line of police inside a tunnel entrance to the Capitol building, and documents say he fought to continue pressing against officers even as other rioters left.
In addition to prison time, Silva was sentenced to four months of home incarceration after his release and was ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution.
More than 1,500 people from across the country have been charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, which disrupted the counting of the 2020 electoral college votes by a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
