Former Uniontown, Pa., Woman Sentenced for Role in Jan. 6 Capitol RiotThe former Fayette County woman who pleaded guilty to participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol alongside her husband was sentenced last week to serve two years in federal prison for showering pepper spray onto police officers protecting Congress from the riotous mob.
Shelly Stallings appeared Friday afternoon in federal court in Washington, D.C., and was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to spend 24 months in prison, which was less than half what federal prosecutors were asking for her to serve for her role in the riot.
Stallings, 43, pleaded guilty in August after she and her husband, Peter Schwartz, traveled from their Uniontown apartment to the nation’s capital and participated in the attack in which both of them used pepper spray on police officers. Schwartz was convicted in December on all charges following a six-day jury trial in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Stallings said little before her sentencing Friday, according to CBS News national correspondent Scott MacFarlane, who apparently attended the proceeding and posted portions of it on his professional Twitter page.
“I regret January 6th,” Stallings said before her sentencing, according to MacFarlane. “It was just a bad thing.”
While live audio for most cases involving Jan. 6 defendants has been available to the public, reporters attempting to listen to Friday’s sentencing hearing through teleconferencing could not access the proceeding remotely as in the past. But pre-sentencing memos filed by both sides indicated a wide canyon in what prosecutors and her defense attorney thought Stallings should receive as her sentence.
Federal prosecutors were seeking a 51-month prison sentence and $2,000 fine for Stallings, according to their pre-sentence memorandum file last month.
"The need for the sentence to provide specific deterrence to Stallings also weighs toward incarceration,” federal prosecutors wrote in the memo. “Although Stallings has now expressed remorse and contrition, she had prior multiple opportunities to confess and accept responsibility for her crimes, and she not only failed to do so, but misled law enforcement officials about them.”
Her federal public defender, Scott Wendelsdorf, pointed out that Stallings pleaded guilty to all charges and “accepted full responsibility” for her actions while cooperating with federal investigators during Schwartz’s trial. He suggested she should receive one year of home confinement followed by three years on probation.
“Shelly Stallings should not escape punishment, but that punishment should be a just punishment, not one that serves only one of the purposes of sentencing to the exclusion of all of the others,” Wendelsdorf wrote in his memo. “Justice and respect for the law are promoted by reasonable sentences, rehabilitation, and the safe return of offenders to society. Shelly can be redeemed. She is worthy of redemption.”
Mehta appeared to split the difference by requiring Stallings to serve two years in federal prison.
“The public needs to understand when police officers are attacked, there need to be consequences,” Mehta told the Stallings before sentencing her, according to MacFarlane’s reporting.
Stallings pleaded guilty Aug. 24 to civil disorder; resisting, imposing, intimidating or impeding certain officers; unlawfully entering and remaining on Capitol property with a dangerous weapon; disorderly and disruptive conduct on restricted grounds; engaging in physical violence; disorderly conduct; and acts of physical violence on Capitol grounds. The sentencing range for the charges meant she could have faced 46 to 57 months in federal prison.
Stallings was charged in February 2022 after photographs and videos surfaced showing her using pepper spray on police officers at the Capitol. She’s been free on bond since her arrest, and has been living in her hometown of Morganfield, Ky., for the past two years. It’s not known when she will report to prison or where she’ll serve her sentence.
Her husband, Schwartz, was arrested at the couple’s Uniontown apartment in February 2021 less than a month after the attack on the Capitol. According to court documents, Schwartz assaulted Stallings two days before his arrest and later contacted her from jail threatening to kill her if she cooperated with federal investigators. The couple is now estranged and Stallings has filed for divorce, according to court documents.
The couple is originally from Kentucky, but came to Fayette County while Schwartz was working as a traveling welder working on various construction sites in the area. Schwartz is also a convicted felon on state charges in Kentucky and was released from prison in that state in 2020 due to COVID-19 safety protocols.
Schwartz, 49, was convicted Dec. 6 on 10 charges – including four felonies – alongside two co-defendants. Schwartz has been jailed without bond since his arrest, and he faces up to 20 years in prison when Mehta is expected to sentence him at 3 p.m. May 5.
https://www.theintelligencer.net/news/community/2023/04/former-uniontown-pa-woman-sentenced-for-role-in-jan-6-capitol-riot/
