By Corinne Murdock |
A federal jury has found GOP congressional candidate Jeff Zink’s son, Ryan Zink, guilty of all charges pertaining to his involvement in January 6.
The District Court of Columbia jury found Zink guilty of all three counts in under half an hour: obstruction of an official proceeding, U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2); entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, U.S.C. § 1752(a)(1); disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, U.S.C. § 1752(a)(2).
The three offenses altogether carry up to 22 years’ imprisonment.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped a fourth charge in his case, engaging in disorderly conduct in a capitol building U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(D), which would’ve warranted up to six additional months in prison.
Zink maintains that he didn’t go inside the Capitol building, and that he was present within the crowd as a media representative for his father’s campaign.
“Not everyone went inside. It was a small group of about I would say 25-30 people and they were the only combative ones[.] I got super close and documented everything[.] I’m not some radical right wing nut job I literally took pictures of them and saw the tattoos[;] it’s not hard to identify,” wrote Zink. “If you were there you could have seen this[,] it was different in my life and in reporting I have seen what riots and violence looks like[;] this was planned strategic trained tactical[;] this was no ordinary rue [sic] it was a planned thing.”
In video evidence obtained by the DOJ, Zink recorded himself traveling within a crowd up to the Capitol building, in which he admitted to knocking down the gates and expressing an intent to breach the building.
“We knocked down the gates! We’re storming the Capitol!” said Zink. “You can’t stop us!”
It was an anonymous social media follower of Zink’s who reported him to the DOJ. According to the DOJ, that follower also reported two other unnamed individuals in attendance at the protest.
Zink says he plans to appeal.
Zink is crowdfunding for his legal fees. As of press time, Zink has raised nearly $8,000 of his $40,000 legal goal.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
