Far-right internet personality and neo-Nazi conspiracy theorist Anthime Gionet, known as Baked Alaska, has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor offense in connection with the attack on the US Capitol, which he live-streamed to his followers.
He pleaded guilty in US District Court on 22 July to one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. The charge carries a prison sentence of up to six months.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for 12 January.
Gionet live-streamed himself on the platform DLive for more than 20 minutes from inside the Capitol on 6 Janury, 2021, including using a phone inside a US Senate office.
Federal prosecutors alleged that he “conducted an approximately 27-minute long” stream from inside the Capitol, where Gionet and others can be heard chanting “patriots are in control”, “whose house? our house” and “traitors, traitors, traitors”.
The government’s case argues that Gionet said “fight for Trump,” “let’s go, America first” and “let’s go, 1776” during the mob’s assault, fuelled by Donald Trump’s baseless narrative that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him.
Gionet – who filmed a music video for his song “We Love Our Cops” – also berated a law enforcement officer during the riot, saying “you’re a f****** oathbreaker, you piece of s***”, “f*** you” and “you broke your oath to the constitution,” according to federal prosecutors.
“This was a fraudulent election. We’re standing up for truth, God’s truth,” he says in the video, according to court filings.
His plea agreement marks a second attempt to reach such a deal. He was set to plead guilty in May but declared his innocence instead.
Three other men who appear in Gionet’s video inside Senator Jeff Merkley’s office – Francis Connor, Antonio Ferrigno and Anton Lunyk – also have pleaded guilty in connection with the riot. They have not yet been sentenced.
Gionet’s video has also been used as evidence in several other riot-related cases.
A judge in Scottsdale, Arizona issued a warrant for his arrest in the days after the attack for violating conditions of his parole in an unrelated case after he left the state to join the riot in Washington DC. He was facing misdemeanor charges of assault, disorderly conduct and criminal trespass in Scottsdale City Court after he allegedly pepper-sprayed an employee after he refused to leave a bar. In January, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
Gionet has been banned from several social media platforms after posting antisemitic and white nationalist memes, and he has marched among hate groups in Charlottesville, Virginia during the so-called “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 and in a similar rally in New Orleans, though he has dismissed neo-Nazi characterisations.
More than 855 people have been arrested in connection with the assault, according to the US Department of Justice. Approximately 263 people are charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees, including 90 people charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious injury to an officer.
