Two Bartholomew County men arrested this week and charged with assaulting law enforcement officers and storming the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack have been placed on pre-trial release pending further court proceedings.
On Wednesday, FBI agents arrested Donald Lee Moss, 62, of Elizabethtown and James Link Behymer, 61, of Hope on felony and misdemeanor charges, including assaulting law enforcement while a violent mob loyal to former President Donald Trump forced its way inside the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Moss and Behymer made their initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis on Thursday and were placed on pre-trial release by a magistrate judge. However, a spokesperson with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana told The Republic that U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., has jurisdiction over the matter “because the alleged crime was committee in D.C., so all their hearings will take place in that court.”
The U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice Nation Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting the case.
Under the terms of the release, the two men cannot leave the Southern District of Indiana unless authorized by federal authorities and are barred from possessing firearms and consuming alcohol, among other conditions.
The two men have been ordered to report to the District of Columbia, where the criminal complaint was filed, on March 19 at 12:30 p.m. via Zoom, court filings state.
The arrest of Moss and Behymer this week raises the total number of current and former Bartholomew County residents who have faced criminal charges over their alleged roles in the deadly insurrection to three.
In April 2021, former Columbus resident and heavy metal musician Jon Schaffer pleaded guilty to storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Schaffer is currently scheduled to be sentenced on April 5, though a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the scope of an obstruction charge used to prosecute him and hundreds of other Jan. 6 defendants could impact the sentence he receives.
Moss and Behymer are currently facing six criminal charges including assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers; civil disorder; entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds; disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a Capitol building or grounds; and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building or grounds, according to the criminal complaint.
However, the complaint does not include obstruction of an official proceeding, the offense that the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on this year.
The complaint alleges that Moss and Behymer were part of a group of “angry and violent rioters” who descended upon and assaulted D.C. Metropolitan police officers near the lower west terrace of the U.S. Capitol who were attempting to keep them from breaching the building on Jan. 6, 2021.
Federal authorities said in the complaint they were able to identify the two Bartholomew County men through cellphone records — including a cellphone number with an 812 area code that connected to a cell site that provided service inside the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection — as well as a witness described as “longtime associate of Moss and Behymer” who identified the two defendants after being shown still images.
Federal prosecutors also included images they claim are of the two men that were taken from officers’ body cameras and third-party footage.
The complaint alleges that Moss and Behymer shoved officers’ arms away from them as the group of rioters “surged toward the surrounded MPD officers and began violently assaulting the officers.” The complaint further alleges that Behymer struck an officer in the wrist and later attempted to pry a baton out of an officer’s hand while stating, “Now I’m being soft, but I do want this pole.”
Moss, who at one point shouted, “This is our (expletive) house” while pointing at the Capitol, allegedly struck an officer’s arm and baton and forcefully pushed another police officer from behind during the attack, the complaint states.
The two Bartholomew County men made their way through the crowd and entered the U.S. Capitol and entered the Crypt, a vaulted space located underneath the Capitol Rotunda. They later exited the Capitol but reentered after rioters broke through a barricade set up by Capitol police at the Senate Wing doors.
After reentering, they returned to the Crypt and moved a sign that had been placed on a statute outside the Crypt’s entrance and put it on another statute before taking pictures of it, according to the complaint. On one side, the sign included the initials of the Chinese Communist Party with a circle and red line through it, while “America First” and “Never give up, never surrender” were written on the other side.
When the two men left the area, Moss took the sign with him and was allegedly captured in video footage carrying the sign inside the U.S. Capitol, as well as outside the building.
Public real estate records show that Moss owns a home on East County Road 700S in Elizabethtown, while Behymer owns a home on East County Road 400N in Hope.
An individual who identified himself as “Don Moss” of Elizabethtown made several contributions to a Trump political action committee and the Republican Party’s WinRed platform in 2020, according to federal campaign finance records. In those contributions, Moss described himself as a carpenter.
As of midday Friday, the case was pending in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
