WASHINGTON – A Universal City man who was seen on video ripping the gas mask off an officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot was found guilty of six felony charges.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden convicted Steven Cappuccio, a 53-year-old veteran, of assault, disorderly conduct and civil disorder.
Co-defendant Federico Guillermo Klein, 45, a Virginia man who worked as a politically appointed State Department official in former President Donald Trump’s administration, was also convicted Thursday.
Klein and Cappuccio were among nine co-defendants charged with crimes related to one of the most violent and pivotal episodes of the Jan. 6 siege: brutal waves of hand-to-hand combat between rioters and police officers in a tunnel leading to a Capitol entrance on the Lower West Terrace.
Klein and Cappuccio converged on the tunnel as outnumbered police officers struggled for hours to hold back the mob of rioters, prosecutors said in a court filing.
McFadden is scheduled to sentence Cappuccio on Oct. 19. McFadden convicted him of assault charges but acquitted him of two counts, including a felony charge that he obstructed the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.
The judge said the tunnel was the scene of “shocking violence and hostility” against police.
“No police officer should have had to endure those attacks without provocation,” McFadden said.
McFadden allowed Klein, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, to remain free under house arrest until his sentencing but ordered Cappuccio to be jailed immediately after the verdict.
Cappuccio was arrested at his home in Universal City in August 2021 after a body-worn camera captured him inside the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol.
Cappuccio yelled, “Storming the castle, boys!” and chanted, “Fight for Trump!” and “Our house!” as he reached the Lower West Terrace. In the tunnel, he joined other rioters in pushing against the police line, prosecutors said.
“All the while, Cappuccio continued to hold his phone in the air, recording the violence between the rioters and the police line,” prosecutors wrote.
When another rioter pinned Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges against a door, Cappuccio ripped a gas mask off the officer's face and dislodged his helmet, prosecutors said.
“Cappuccio then took Officer Hodges’ riot baton out of his hands and used the baton to strike Officer Hodges in the face,” they wrote. "Throughout this vicious assault, Officer Hodges screamed and pleaded for help."
The video was played during a Congressional hearing in which Hodges testified.
More than 100 police officers were injured during the riot. More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack. Approximately 100 of them have been convicted by juries or judges. Only two have been acquitted of all charges after trials. Over 600 others have pleaded guilty.
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