Judge jails young N.C. defendant in Capitol riot; says violence was ‘based on a lie.’
After Aiden Bilyard pleaded guilty Thursday to a violent felony in connection with the U.S. Capitol riot, his attorneys cited his age and his cooperation with the government in asking that he be allowed to return home to North Carolina until his Feb. 2 sentencing.
U.S. Senior District Judge Reggie Walton jailed him anyway, describing Bilyard’s behavior on Jan. 6, 2021, as “chilling and beyond the pale.”
Bilyard is among the youngest of almost 900 defendants tied to the unprecedented domestic assault on the Capitol. He was 18 when he drove from his home in Cary to Washington, D.C., to attend a Jan. 6 rally in which defeated President Donald Trump baselessly claimed that Democrats stole the election for Joe Biden.
After Trump urged thousands of his followers to march to the Capitol where Congress was in session to certify Biden’s win, Bilyard was caught on video firing a chemical agent at police officers guarding the building. After the mob broke through police lines, he used a baseball bat to break out a window which he and other rioters used to get inside.
Bilyard, now 20, was originally charged with nine crimes – five of them felonies. As part of a deal with federal prosecutors, he pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers using a deadly or dangerous weapon.
According to a government filing in the case, Bilyard faces 46 to 57 months in prison, which would be the longest sentence handed down to a North Carolina defendant so far. Walton will have the final say, and he could go above or below the estimated range.
In his closing remarks at the end of the 90-minute hearing, the veteran judge left little doubt that he believes Bilyard’s crimes are serious and that the defendant’s age is irrelevant.
“Eighteen is old enough to know right from wrong,” said Walton, who was appointed to the D.C. federal bench by President George W. Bush.
Bilyard, he said, assaulted police, destroyed government property and encouraged others to join him.
The defendant “had the right to protest,” the judge said. “But to see this kind of violence, police fighting for their lives ... yet you don’t get to the mindset at some point that ‘This is wrong, and I’ve got to stop’?
“It is just something that is chilling and beyond the pale.”
Defense attorney Jamie Vavonese of Raleigh did not immediately respond to The Charlotte Observer’s request for comment Thursday.
‘Based on lies’
Bilyard is the youngest of at least 24 North Carolinians charged in connection with the violence, which has been linked to at least five deaths. More than 140 police officers were injured.
In unusually candid remarks for a sitting judge, Walton decried the political movement he held responsible, whose leader — he did not specifically name Trump — made claims to stay in power “based on lies, based on nothing of substance.”
“... Nonetheless, people (were) gullible enough to come a long distance and engage in conduct that was an assault on law enforcement officials, to attack the citadel, the prime symbol of our government, and to destroy that.
“... I don’t understand the willingness to do what was done here ... to undermine the greatness of our country.”
Bilyard was arrested Nov. 23, 2021. He has been living with his mother in Cary since his January indictment. His attorneys asked that he be allowed to return to North Carolina to await sentencing.
Walton refused. “Like my mother used to tell me, ‘You make your bed, you sleep in it’,” he told the defense.
The judge did agree to a defense request to recommend that Bilyard be sent to the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Va., and not to the jail in Washington, D.C., where some of defendants in the most serious Jan. 6 cases are being held.
But when the defense asked for permission for Bilyard to drive with his mother to report to jail later in the day, Walton again drew a line.
Bilyard’s conduct on Jan. 6 was “so outrageous that he will have to be detained today,” the judge said.
This story was originally published October 20, 2022 at 4:12 PM.
