A federal appeals court on Sept. 6 upheld an obstruction conviction for a former U.S. Capitol Police officer who told a man who went inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to delete an incriminating post on Facebook.
The conviction of obstructing the investigation into the Capitol breach will stand because Michael Riley, the former officer, did not provide evidence supporting his theory that government prosecutors failed to prove he intended to be obstructive when he advised Jacob Hiles, who breached the Capitol, to remove the post, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel said.
“Hey Jake, im [sic] a capitol police officer who agrees with your political stance,” Riley wrote to Hiles in a direct message on Facebook after learning Hiles had posted about going inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. “Take down the part about being in the building they are currently investigating and everyone who was in the building is going to [be] charged. Just looking out!”
Hiles later told Riley that he had been arrested and interviewed by the FBI, and that agents asked about Riley. The next day, Riley deleted his messages he had sent to Hiles and removed calls between himself and Hiles from his phone’s call log.
Riley wrote to Hiles in a message that was not deleted that he tried defending Hiles but then watched video of Hiles in the Capitol “acting like a moron.”
“I was shocked and dumbfounded since your story of getting pushed in the building with no other choice now seems not only false, but is a complete lie. I feel like a moron for believing you,” Riley wrote, adding later that he was so mad he deleted all the messages.
“The indictment’s allegations and the trial evidence sufficed to show that it was reasonably foreseeable that at least one grand jury would be—and was—empaneled to hear evidence of crimes relating to the January 6 Capitol breach,” Pillard said in the new ruling. “They also showed that Riley knew his deletion of records of his communications with Hiles would tend to impair the availability of that evidence to the grand jury. Because each of Riley’s challenges rests on that core, flawed argument, each fails.”
U.S. Circuit Judges J. Michelle Childs and Bradley N. Gracia, the other judges on the panel, joined Pillard in the unanimous ruling.
A lawyer representing Riley did not return a request for comment. The U.S. Department of Justice, which prosecuted the case and opposed the appeal, did not respond to an inquiry.
