Supporters of President Donald Trump riot against the Electoral College vote count on January 6, 2021, in protest of Trump's loss to President-elect Joe Biden, prompting a lockdown of the Capitol Building. Photo by Leigh Vogel/UPI |
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March 4 (UPI) -- Teenager Jackson Reffitt testified against his father, Guy Reffitt, Thursday in the first federal trial regarding a defendant in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, bringing his father to tears at one time.
The younger Reffitt told the court that his father, a member of the extremist Texas Three Percenters militia, bragged about being on the Capitol steps on Jan. 6 with a weapon, was proud of his actions and threatened to shoot his son if he turned him in.
Jackson Reffitt confirmed recorded statements made during conversations he had with his father after the riot and email exchanges.
"If you turn me in, you're a traitor, and traitors get shot," Jackson Reffitt told the court his father told him and his younger sister shortly after returning from Washington.
Jackson Reffitt said turning his father in came with a hefty emotional price tag, causing a rift with his mother and two sisters. He still called the decision, "the best-case scenario."
In one recording with his son, Guy Reffitt bragged about carrying a gun at the Capitol, something the elder Reffitt has denied.
"You carried a weapon onto Capitol grounds," Jackson is heard saying in the recording, according to CBS News.
Guy Reffitt responded: "I did it. I did bring a weapon on property that we own."
Prosecutors presented other evidence as well during the trial in the form of texts and other communications.
"I got hit with rubber bullets and pepper-sprayed. I was the first person to light the fire on the Capitol steps ... WE TOOK THE CAPITAL," Guy Reffitt texted a friend immediately after the attack, according to the Washington Post.
Guy Reffitt, who lives in Wylie, Texas, faces five felony counts in a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and is the only alleged Capitol rioter known to have been turned in by his own children.
More than 750 people have been charged in connection with the deadly insurrection, while more than 200 of them have already pleaded guilty, according to data from the Justice Department. More than 100 people have already been sentenced.
