SALT LAKE CITY — A federal jury Thursday in Washington decided Utah activist John Earle Sullivan didn’t just document the U.S. Capitol Riot, he was a participant.
The jury convicted Sullivan of all seven counts, according to investigative reporter Jordan Fischer. That includes three charges related to carrying a weapon – a knife – and counts accusing him of interrupting Congress as it voted to certify the U.S. presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021.
According to Fisher, the judge ordered that Sullivan be held in custody while he awaits sentencing.
Weapons charges like what Sullivan was convicted of have sent other Jan. 6 defendants to prison for months or years. Sentencing is expected to be sometime in 2024.
Sullivan, 29, was one of the first people arrested after the riots and the first Utah riot defendant to take his case to trial. With an online presence known as Jayden X and Insurgence USA, Sullivan was a fixture at social justice protests in Utah in the summer of 2020.
Sullivan, testified in his own defense, has maintained he went to the Capitol because he believed there would be a violent effort to stop the certification and he wanted to film the altercations. Court records say he sold his video footage to news outlets for $90,000.
But the prosecution used Sullivan’s own videos and words against him. He was heard on recordings encouraging the mob, at one point telling rioters, “I have a knife. I have a knife. Let me up.”
Prosecutors called to the witness stand a Salt Lake City-based FBI agent who interviewed Sullivan after he returned to Utah. They also called witnesses who testified in previous insurrection trials – a Capitol police officer who described the mob and violence and a Secret Service agent who discussed the threat the mob posed to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
