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Nine Southwestern Pa. residents convicted in Jan. 6 riot receive Trump pardons

Four defendants still serving prison sentences to be released

They attacked police officers, vandalized the U.S. Capitol, stole government property and ransacked both chambers of Congress.

But less than eight hours into his second term, President Donald Trump issued unconditional blanket pardons to more than 1,100 of his supporters convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection – including nine from Southwestern Pennsylvania – while promising to drop federal charges against nearly 500 others still facing trial.

Of the nine people in this area who were convicted and sentenced for their roles during the riot at the Capitol more than four years ago, four are still serving lengthy prison terms. But with a stroke of his black magic marker Monday night, Trump granted them and the nearly 1,600 other Jan. 6 participants a “full, complete and unconditional pardon,” freeing those who remain incarcerated and offering a clean slate for those who have already been released from jail.

“They’ve already been in jail for a long time already,” Trump told the White House press corps as he signed the pardons and dozens of other executive orders in the Oval Office. “These people have been destroyed. What they’ve done to these people is outrageous. There’s rarely been anything like it in history, in the history of our country.”

By early Tuesday morning, the federal Bureau of Prisons was already discharging some of those who were still incarcerated. Amy Collins, the defense attorney who represented 32-year-old Joshua Atwood of Burgettstown in his guilty plea last year that resulted in a four-year sentence, confirmed her client fell under the blanket pardon despite him serving just nine months in prison.

“I wouldn’t be comfortable commenting on his specific case, but I know the (Bureau of Prisons) is releasing people as we speak, and some individuals have already been released per Trump’s order,” Collins said in a phone interview Tuesday.

While Atwood, who pleaded guilty in September to using various objects to attack police officers protecting the Capitol, is expected to be released soon, he is still facing state charges in West Virginia for allegedly robbing and stabbing a worker at the Crazy Donkey restaurant in Chester in April 2023. His local defense attorney and authorities in Hancock County could not be reached for comment Tuesday to determine whether he will be returned to the Northern Panhandle to face those charges.

Trump’s decision to pardon everyone accused of being involved in the Jan. 6 riot and commute the sentences of more than a dozen others convicted of seditious conspiracy contradicted earlier statements by his surrogates during the presidential campaign that only non-violent offenders would be set free. Republican U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, whose 14th Congressional District includes Washington and Fayette counties where seven J6ers called home, condemned the attack during Trump’s impeachment hearing in the House a week after the riot, but has remained silent following the pardons.

“I’m deeply troubled by last week’s attack on our Capitol,” Reschenthaler said on the House floor Jan. 13, 2021, while announcing he would vote against impeachment. “As I have been saying all summer long, violence and rioting has no place in America, and the criminals responsible for last week’s rioting must be brought to justice. At a time when our nation is still healing, we must seek out issues to work on that unite us, rather than issues that further divide us. I was greatly encouraged to see our country unite in condemnation of last week’s lawlessness and the rioting.”

There was no response to an email sent to Reschenthaler’s press secretary asking for the congressman’s thoughts on the presidential pardons.

In addition to Atwood, several other local people were accused and eventually convicted of attacking police officers, vandalizing the Capitol or entering restricted areas.

A federal jury convicted Peter Schwartz of Uniontown on all charges during his December 2022 trial in Washington, D.C., after he was accused of showering police officers in pepper spray while attempting to enter the Capitol during the riot. He was later sentenced to serve 14 years in federal prison – the longest incarceration for any J6 defendant at the time.

His defense attorney, Dennis Boyle, appealed the guilty verdict, and a federal appeals court last week overturned the conviction, claiming investigators violated Schwartz’s Fifth Amendment rights with how they seized his cellphone to search for incriminating evidence. Schwartz likely would have been tried again if not for Trump’s presidential pardon.

“The conviction was reversed and remanded back to District Court and now he’s been pardoned,” Boyle said in a phone interview Tuesday, adding that the Trump Administration has now dismissed all of the other pending cases involving Capitol rioters.

Schwartz, 51, had been jailed in Washington, D.C., while awaiting trial after his arrest in February 2021, but he was transferred to a federal prison in Atwater, Calif., and has served less than four years of his 14-year sentence. Boyle was unsure when Schwartz would be released or where he would go once he was set free since he and his now ex-wife, Shelly Stallings, are originally from Kentucky but were living in Uniontown when they traveled to Washington, D.C.

“I don’t know where he intends to return,” Boyle said. “I suspect Kentucky, but that’s more of a guess than anything.”

Stallings, 45, participated in the riot with her husband while using pepper spray on police officers. After they were both charged, Stallings was released on bond and she returned to Kentucky, where she filed for divorce from Schwartz. Stallings pleaded guilty and was sent to federal prison for two years in prison, but she is only one month away from completing her sentence.

Dale “D.J.” Shalvey and Tara Stottlemyer, who lived in Bentleyville at the time of the Capitol riot, were seen on video rummaging through documents on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Shalvey also was accused of assaulting a police officer during the riot. After the riot, the couple married and moved to Conover, N.C., where they started Free Folk Pastures to perform regenerative farming.

Shalvey, 40, pleaded guilty in October 2022 and was sentenced in May 2023, but asked for a delay in reporting and was not ordered to prison until last August when a federal judge denied his request for another extension. He has served less than six months of his 41-month prison sentence. Stottlemyer, 39, was sentenced in May 2023 to serve eight months in prison, and she was ordered to report in December 2023 before being released in June after six months.

Jorden Mink, 31, of South Fayette used a baseball bat to bash through a window at the Capitol, struck officers with a pole and stole chairs from inside the building. He pleaded guilty in January 2023, but was released this past July on probation after serving 41 months of his 51-month prison sentence, which was supposed to be followed by three years on supervised release.

Kenneth Grayson, 55, of Bridgeville, who led a group of Trump supporters to Washington, D.C. and was seen trespassing in the Capitol’s crypt area, pleaded guilty in September 2022 and served a two-month prison term.

Philip “Flip” Vogel II, 37, of Houston, Pa., and his fiancée, Debra Maimone 31, of Burgettstown, were living in New Castle when they traveled to Washington, D.C., and entered the Capitol, where they took two police masks and a government-issued “escape hood” while walking the halls of Congress. Both pleaded guilty in June 2023, and Vogel served a one-month prison sentence while Maimone spent two months on probation.

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