Schaffer
File photo
Federal prosecutors have missed a court-ordered deadline to certify that a local man who pleaded guilty to participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack was still compliant with the terms of his pretrial release.
Attorneys representing heavy metal guitarist and former Columbus resident Jon Schaffer said in court filings in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that they had contacted federal prosecutors “multiple times” to file a joint status report but were “unable to confer” with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to file the report before Friday’s deadline.
The absence of the attorneys representing the U.S. government in the court filing marks a departure from past joint status reports that the two parties have filed since Schaffer pleaded guilty in April 2021 to, among other things, breaching the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, armed with bear repellent and obstructing an official proceeding.
In the most recent before Friday’s deadline, filed in May, the two parties concurred that Schaffer, who former was a musician in the band Iced Earth and a member of the Oath Keepers, was “compliant with pretrial release conditions” and “cooperative” with law enforcement.
Schaffer’s attorneys claim in the filing this past Friday that he is still in compliance, but they also included new language about Schaffer allegedly cooperating with federal authorities investigating Thomas Caldwell, another Oath Keeper, and others who have been charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack, characterizing the case as the “largest conspiracy arising out of the incident” so far.
It was the first status report to cite a specific case that Schaffer had allegedly assisted federal investigators with.
It is unclear why federal prosecutors missed the deadline or if U.S. government plans to file a response to the filing by Schaffer’s attorneys.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia declined to comment on the matter on Monday, telling The Republic that, “Following our usual practice, we are not commenting on cases beyond our public filings and statements to the court.”
As of noon Monday, the most recent filing from the U.S. government in the case was in May.
The court filing this past Friday comes after uncertainty over Schaffer’s whereabouts surfaced in a separate civil lawsuit filed against him and other anti-government extremists who have pleaded guilty to their role in the insurrection or are currently on trial.
The civil lawsuit, filed by the District of Columbia in December 2021, seeks to recover “extraordinary damages and costs” due to the insurrection, including dispatching hundreds of Metropolitan Police Department officers to defend the Capitol against the attack, emergency and medical treatment for at least 65 injured officers, paid leave for officers who could not work due to their injuries, among other costs.
Nearly 1,000 Capitol police officers have required therapy to help them cope with the physical and emotional trauma caused by the events that unfolded during the Jan. 6 attack, the lawsuit states. Many officers still require ongoing therapy.
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrios and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes — both of whom are currently facing charges of seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6 insurrection — also are among the defendants in the civil action.
Schaffer was one of the first six insurrectionists to push through the damaged doors of the Capitol and was photographed inside wearing a hat that said, “Oath Keepers Lifetime Member,” with bear spray in his hand, according to the lawsuit.
As part of his guilty plea in his criminal case, Schaffer acknowledged that he is “a founding, lifetime member of the Oath Keepers” and believes that “the federal government has been ‘co-opted’ by a cabal of elites actively trying to strip American citizens of their rights.”
The Oath Keepers is a militia group that recruits current and former military, police and first responders.
Since filing the lawsuit, attorneys representing the District of Columbia have struggled to find Schaffer and notify him of the lawsuit. The search has involved a “variety of tools and teams of skip tracers, process servers, private investigators and outside counsel,” and has led to “at least 25 separate attempts to serve Schaffer at seven different addresses across three different states” — including three residences in the Columbus area.
At one point this year, the District of Columbia believed that Schaffer was “hiding from process servers in a mobile home in Auburndale, Florida,” according to court filings. “Since locating that address, the District has attempted service there at least five times, yet Schaffer refuses to answer the door — thereby preventing effective service absent further relief from the court.”
On Sept. 30, a federal judge issued an order to temporarily halt the civil action until the criminal trial against Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, is concluded.
Currently, it is unclear if federal law enforcement officials know Schaffer’s whereabouts or if they believe he has violated the terms of his plea agreement. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia declined to comment on the matter in early October.
