Former Sheriff’s Deputy Ronald McAbee Considering Jan. 6 Plea Deal Just Before Trial

McAbee performed CPR on a dying Rosanne Boyland at US Capitol

Ronald McAbee renders aid to an injured Rosanne Boyland outside the Lower West Terrace tunnel at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Graphic by The Epoch Times

Former Tennessee sheriff’s deputy Ronald Colton McAbee, referred to as a “terrorist” by a U.S. District judge in 2021, who tried to rescue a dying Rosanne Boyland at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, is considering a plea agreement that would stave off his October trial date.

Mr. McAbee, 29, of Unionville, Tennessee, had been scheduled for an Oct. 2 trial on Jan. 6 charges that include assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer; two counts of civil disorder; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; and committing an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.

A motion filed with U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras on Sept. 6 by federal prosecutors indicated a scheduled Sept. 13 pretrial hearing would be converted into a change-of-plea hearing.

Mr. McAbee’s wife, Sarah, said that final details were still being worked out. The Sept. 13 hearing is still on the docket as a pretrial conference, she said.

“There has been nothing in stone yet,” Mrs. McAbee told The Epoch Times. “The attorneys are still going back and forth.”

Mr. McAbee was arrested in Nashville on Aug. 17, 2021. United States Magistrate Judge Jeffery Frensley in the Middle District of Tennessee ordered Mr. McAbee released pending trial, but the U.S. Department of Justice filed an emergency motion to stay the magistrate’s order. That motion was granted by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan.

During a Sept. 22, 2021, detention hearing in Washington, Judge Sullivan used the term “terrorist” to describe Mr. McAbee and other protesters around him outside the Lower West Terrance tunnel at the Capitol.

When discussing video evidence that purported to show Mr. McAbee dragging a police officer into the crowd, the judge remarked: “So it appears clearly to this court that the defendant is pulling the officer back into the crowd of other terrorists.”

Prosecutors argued that Mr. McAbee had assaulted Metropolitan Police Department Officer Andrew Wyatt. They said that, after the officer fell at the tunnel entrance, Mr. McAbee—who had a broken shoulder from a car accident nine days earlier—pulled him down the concrete stairs into a hostile crowd.

At the initial hearings, bodycam video played as evidence did not include an audio track. On the audio, Mr. McAbee is heard telling Officer Wyatt that he is a law enforcement officer and will help him.

Ronald McAbee was a deputy for the Williamson County Sheriff's Office in Tennessee when he went to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Courtesy of Sarah McAbee

“What makes the government’s case weak is the fact that the videos actually exonerate Mr. McAbee of the very allegations made against him, and Mr. McAbee is motivated to appear for trial, take the stand, and narrate those videos for [the] jury,” William Shipley—then Mr. McAbee’s attorney— wrote in an unsuccessful May 2022 motion to have his client released from jail.

Despite the evidence, Judge Sullivan refused to reconsider his order that Mr. McAbee be held in jail pending trial.

Judge Sullivan was later removed from Mr. McAbee’s case, which was assigned to Judge Contreras.

In September 2022, Mr. McAbee was maced and knocked to the ground by staff at the District of Columbia jail because he did not wear a face mask when walking from his cell to a nearby cart to obtain his medication. Mrs. McAbee has said she is considering legal action against the jail for the attack.

Mr. McAbee was one of the bystanders who rendered medical aid to Ms. Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia, after she collapsed at the mouth of the terrace tunnel when police gassed protesters and pushed them down the steps.

Ms. Boyland was beaten with a wooden walking stick by Metropolitan Police Department Officer Lila Morris just before protesters pulled the injured woman to safety and began performing CPR. Ms. Boyland later died at a Washington hospital.

Mr. McAbee wrote an emotional letter to Ms. Boyland’s parents, expressing his grief that he and other bystanders could not revive their daughter.