NC man told FBI that Antifa lured him into the Capitol on Jan. 6. A judge didn’t buy it

A federal judge in Washington sentenced a North Carolina truck driver to jail and a long probation on Monday — not only for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol but to keep the Catawba County man from joining “another riot” after the next presidential election.

James “Les” Little, of Claremont, will spend 60 days in custody and serve three years of supervised release after pleading guilty in November to a misdemeanor charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.

While Little was peaceful, many around him were not. As many as seven deaths have been linked to the violence; 140 police officers were injured, and more than $1 million in damages to the Capitol occurred.

Little’s attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender Peter Adolf of Charlotte, told Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth that while his client had entered the Capitol, he had not taken part in the violence or destroyed any property.

Little, he said, deserved probation, which federal courts had already granted in what Adolf described as more serious Capitol cases.

In an oral argument that lasted more than an hour, Adolf said his client had now been caught in the “pushback by the public, politicians and some of the judges in this district” that sentences for Capitol defendants need “to hurt.”

He asked Lamberth to consider Little as an individual and not a member of an angry mob.

“It’s tempting to talk about collective responsibility,” said Adolf, who joined the hearing from Charlotte. “But that’s not what our legal system is about. You’re responsible for your own actions.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael James of Raleigh described Little’s culpability in different terms. He told the judge that by their mere presence, Little and other relatively peaceful Capitol intruders “depleted” the ability of police to respond to the “siege of the Capitol of government, the stopping of democracy itself.”

“Mr. Little played a part in that,” James said.

Picking up that point, Lamberth, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, said in a sentencing memo filed after the hearing that Little and others accused of lesser criminal conduct were “an essential component to the harm.”

“Law-enforcement officers,” Lamberth wrote, “were overwhelmed by the sheer swath of criminality.”

Moreover, the judge said he feared Little might reprise his role in the upcoming presidential election since he had shown no remorse, has not apologized, and blamed police, Antifa and Black Lives Matters for his conduct.

While a term of imprisonment punishes Little for his behavior, Lamberth wrote, “only a longer-term of probation is adequate to ensure that Little will not become an active participant in another riot.”

Facebook posts, angry texts

Little, who will serve his sentence in his home county, is one of at least 18 North Carolina defendants charged in the Capitol prosecution. Overall, almost 800 arrests have been made.

While other North Carolinians have been charged with far more serious crimes, Little’s case serves as a highly public microcosm on how former President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of a stolen election continue to polarize the country along with N.C. families and friends.

On Jan. 6, Little texted a family member while in the building.

“We just took over the Capitol,” Little wrote.

“And you are bragging?” the relative fired back. ‘’We”? THIS IS TREASON!!! IF YOU DON’T CONDEMN THIS, NEVER BOTHER SPEAKING TO ME AGAIN! HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE PEOPLE. IT’S A COUP! YOU OBVIOUSLY HATE AMERICA!!!”

“We are stopping treason,” Little responded. “Stealing elections is treason! We’re not going to take it anymore!

“... You’ll thank me for saving your freedom ...”

The family member turned him in to the FBI.

A week later, when agents came to talk to him at his home in Claremont, 45 miles northwest of Charlotte, Little described himself as a “Christian, conservative patriot” who believed the election had been stolen from Trump.

He said the defeated president’s supporters were peaceful but had been lured into the Capitol by members of Antifa waving Trump flags, according to a recording of the Jan. 13, 2021, interview played in court.

Little, who lives with his mother, said he had been swept up in an “emotional, spiritual and patriotic” event to save the country, and he blamed police for escalating the violence with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Another Capitol riot?

Little’s first sentencing hearing in February was canceled when he came down with COVID-19.

He made his battle with the disease a public one, posting several videos on his YouTube channel. He titled one 40-second clip, “God Help me Jesus! Wuhan-19 Day VI.”

“I just wanna die. Just pray for me,” Little said looking into the camera.

Some of his other social media posts surfaced in his sentencing file.

In November 2020, following Trump’s defeat, Little uploaded a now-deleted video to his YouTube channel in which he threatened civil war against Democrats unless the Supreme Court overturned Biden’s victory.

Trump’s backers, according to Little, “owned lots of guns and God forbid we’d ever have to use it on you,” he said, according to James’s filing.

In a response to another Facebook poster, Little said Trump supporters knew they were walking into a “setup and a trap” on Jan. 6.

“But it doesn’t matter when the wolves are running the chicken house ... the Chinese bought (the) treasonous criminal politicians purposely ruining the country,” he wrote.

Not long before his sentencing, Little again went online to urge people to write letters to the judge.

“No one wants to help me?” he said. “I impulsively put my life, freedom and neck on the line at a protest to try to save our constitutional Republic, freedom, rule of law, and capitalism, and no one wants to even write a letter for me???”

Lamberth received two.

One came from the Rev. Dennis Richards, Little’s pastor at the First Baptist Church of Claremont, who told the judge Little has a “Christian servant’s heart.”

“I know that Les has his own views on various subjects, but I don’t believe he means any harm to anyone,” Richards wrote.

The other letter came from out of state. Carlton Huffman of Wisconsin, who said he met Little while working as a political operative in western North Carolina, said Little deserved a “heightened” sentence because he had shown no remorse.

“For as long as former President Trump maintains that the 2020 election was stolen it is my sincere believe that James Little will be ‘on call’ for a future Jan. 6th style attack on the United States government,” Huffman wrote.

“I ask as a citizen that James Little be given the maximum penalty allowed.”

Lamberth didn’t go that far. The maximum penalty was six months. But he doubled the period of confinement that prosecutors had sought.

He also banned Little from using social media during his probationary period.

Given the chance to speak before Lamberth announced his decision, Little did not apologize. Instead, he said the FBI agents and other law enforcement officers had never read him his rights.

He also highlighted his public service, how he had donated 17 pints of blood throughout his life, done volunteer work in soup kitchens and nursing homes, and had taken part in mission trips to Ukraine and Russia.

He had one more request.

Little said he had “gotten a lot of hate” in response to his politicized social media posts. Since his crime had been a misdemeanor and not a felony, Little asked that, “My Second Amendment right can be restored to me so I can protect myself and my mother.”

Lamberth did not respond.

This story was originally published March 14, 2022 at 5:40 PM.

Michael Gordon

The Charlotte Observer

704-358-5095

Michael Gordon has been the Observer’s legal affairs writer since 2013. He has been an editor and reporter at the paper since 1992, occasionally writing about schools, religion, politics and sports. He spent two summers as “Bikin Mike,” filing stories as he pedaled across the Carolinas.