CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A 30-year-old Fayetteville man admitted Friday to unleashing a chemical spray at police during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
James Phillip Mault, formerly of Brockport, New York, pleaded guilty Friday to the charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers, according to a news release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia.
Mault sprayed the chemical toward officers as he hung from the wood frame surrounding the arch of a tunnel that leads into the Capitol building, prosecutors said.
Mault is among at least 20 North Carolinians charged or under investigation in connection with the violence. The crowds aimed to interrupt certification of Donald Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden.
Court documents said Mault got a small canister of chemical spray from another member of the crowd and sprayed it at officers defending the tunnel. He got a second canister from the crowd and gave it to another rioter, records shows.
Earlier that afternoon, Mault was part of the crowd that overwhelmed a police line, “forcing officers to retreat up a central staircase to the Lower West Terrace” at the Capitol, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
He stood at or near the front of the crowd that was pushing forward against the officers, prosecutors said.
Police arrested Mault Oct. 7 in Fort Bragg.
He faces up to eight years in prison, and is scheduled to be sentenced July 15, court documents show.
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(Staff writer Michael Gordon contributed.)
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