Navy Reservist, a Jan. 6 Defendant, Convicted of Separate Charges of Unlawful Possession of Unregistered Silencers

Hatchet Speed. Alexandria Sheriff's Office via AP

A federal jury late Jan. 18 convicted a Navy reservist on charges of unlawful possession of unregistered silencers.

Hatchet Speed, 41, of Falls Church, Virginia, also faces entirely separate charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. capitol.

On the three counts of unlawfully possessing unregistered silencers, Speed faces a maximum penalty of 30 years—10 years for each count—in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for April 13. Actual sentences for federal crimes are typically less than the maximum penalties.

His lawyer, public defender Brooke Rupert, said Speed intends to appeal the verdict.

The case against Speed hinged on three items he bought from a company in Georgia in March 2021 that federal prosecutors argued were unregistered silencers.

But Speed says the devices are cleaning supplies—solvent traps to collect excess liquid that spills out when a gun is cleaned.

‘Spent Over $40,000 at Stores’

Prosecutors said that Speed purchased the silencers following the events of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. Specifically, between February to May 2021, Speed bought at least 12 firearms and spent more than $40,000 at stores that sold firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition. The prosecutors presented the records and evidence at trial, the Justice Department announced.

Regarding what the prosecutors called “unregistered silencers,” while the company selling the items marketed them as solvent traps, the prosecutors argued that the items are designed to be easily converted into silencers, which is why people spend more than $300 for them.

A firearms expert for the government said it takes about 10 minutes to convert the item into a fully functional silencer by using a hand drill to make a hole in the end for a bullet to pass through.

They argued that Speed purchased the solvent traps in March 2021 after learning that several silencers he had just purchased would take a significantly long time to be delivered to him, due to paperwork and registration requirements.

“The silencers were not registered to Speed in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, as required by law,” the Justice Department announced. “By circumventing the registration requirements for silencers, Speed was able to take possession of the silencers within a week of purchasing them.”

Speed’s lawyers had pushed back, saying the items were indeed solvent traps and not silencers. They said Speed never modified the items to make them work like silencers and that he didn’t have any intention to break the law.

The items bought by Speed are made of titanium and contain baffles that would be found on silencers. They can be screwed onto the threaded barrel of a 9 mm handgun.

Federal prosecutors played recordings at the trial, in which Speed told an undercover FBI agent that he understood the devices’ true use was as a silencer.

According to the Justice Department, during the meetings with the FBI agent in early 2022, Speed “discussed his anti-Semitic, anti-government ideologies” and “also discussed taking violent action in furtherance of his ideologies.”

“Speed praised the approach of jihadists and suggested that their approach would be an effective way to ‘wipe out’ the opposition, referring to Jewish people,” the Justice Department stated. “Speed discussed his efforts to identify targets who were ’reachable‘ by someone like him, stating that he thought about using a ’mock trial’ to decide which people to add to ’the list.’

“During this discussion, Speed confirmed to the FBI undercover employee that he believed his ’solvent traps,' meaning his unregistered silencers, would come in handy for this purpose.”

Prosecutors said the law governing silencers covers devices intended for use as a silencer, even if they have a different function or were sold under another name.

“The law does not allow that kind of gamesmanship,” prosecutor Thomas Traxler said in closing arguments Wednesday.

The defense urged jurors to ignore Speed’s ideology, with defense lawyer Courtney Dixon telling the jurors: “Some of Mr. Speed’s thoughts may be distasteful but his conduct in this case was not criminal.”

The jury reached the guilty verdict in the U.S. District Court in Alexandria after a few hours of deliberation. It comes a month after Speed’s first trial resulted in a mistrial when a jury failed to reach a verdict.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has, in recent years, shut down and seized several websites that sold solvent traps, including the one from which Speed bought his solvent traps.

Separate Jan. 6 Charges

Speed faces five separate counts related to the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol in 2021. The counts include (pdf) disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.

Speed is among more than hundreds of people arrested in connection with the incident when the joint session of Congress was temporarily interrupted when a sizable group of protesters entered the Capitol building and its surrounds.

People attend the Save America rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Mark Zou/The Epoch Times

Outside were thousands of other mostly peaceful protesters who had gathered in Washington on the day to express their concerns about election integrity.

Four Americans died on Jan. 6, 2021, amid the mayhem that took place that day on Capitol grounds—Trump supporters Ashli Babbitt, Rosanne Boyland, Kevin Greeson, and Benjamin Phillips.

Babbitt’s death was ruled a homicide. Paul Sperry and RealClearInvestigations, in late 2021, identified U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) Lt. Michael Byrd as the person who shot Babbitt prior to her death.

The deaths of Greeson and Phillips were officially determined to be due to natural causes. But independent journalist Tayler Hansen, who was wearing press credentials while among the crowd that day, alleged that the two men “both suffered fatal heart attacks from the munitions being thrown” by the Capitol Police. Hansen previously published a video showing some explosive munitions that went off in the crowd and the resultant panic on the day.

Meanwhile, Boyland’s death was ruled as an accident, but video unsealed in December 2021 showed that she was struck repeatedly by one police officer as she lay unconscious near the Capitol building.

More than 950 individuals have been dealt charges by the Department of Justice, accusing them of having committed federal crimes on Jan. 6, 2021. Dozens of Americans continue to be held in prison without trial.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.