A Virginia man who is now serving almost three years behind bars for forcing his way into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, must also pay for the tens of thousands of dollars worth of media equipment he destroyed on his way out, a three-judge panel ruled Friday.
Joshua Dillon Haynes, 41, was sentenced last February to 32 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison; and destruction of property, which carries a maximum 5-year prison term.
Court filings showed that Mr. Haynes documented his activities in Washington D.C. that day in text messages he sent to associates. While inside the U.S. Capitol, Mr. Haynes also took selfies of himself venturing the building complex, including inside a senator’s office. “We are inside the Congress the Senate we stormed inside,” he wrote in a message to an associate.
After leaving the building, Mr. Haynes joined a crowd near a media staging area on the Capitol grounds. Media personnel fled the scene as the crowd closed in, allowing them to destroy what was left behind—cameras, lights, tripods, and other paraphernalia.
Mr. Haynes personally smashed multiple pieces of equipment. Alongside a photo of himself standing in front of the debris, he wrote in a message that “[w]e attacked the CNN reporters and the fake news and destroyed tens of thousands of dollars of their video and television equipment here’s a picture of me behind the pile we made out of it.”
“They had to run away from us and leave all their equipment so we destroyed it,” he wrote in one of the text messages similarly recounting his conduct. “ahhhhh I liked it too I have already seen a report of it and I am in the video destroying the stuff but I’m wearing a mask,” another read.
Contrary to Mr. Haynes’ assumption that the camera equipment he destroyed belonged to CNN, it was in fact property of ZDF, a German public TV broadcasting service. In addition to his sentence, Haynes was ordered to pay ZDF’s insurer the dollar equivalent of €29,989.36, or approximately $33,000 based on the current exchange rate.
Mr. Haynes appealed the restitution, arguing that the federal law for which he was convicted only applies to the destruction of federal government property, not private property like ZDF’s.
In the ruling handed down Friday, a panel of three judges of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected that argument, saying that the lower court didn’t err with the restitution order.
“Section 1363 makes it a crime to, ‘within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, willfully and maliciously destroy or injure any structure, conveyance, or other real or personal property.’ That language draws no distinction between federal and non- federal property,” the per curiam opinion read.
The appellate judges also rejected Mr. Haynes’s other arguments on why he should not be held responsible for the $33,000 reimbursement, such as that he didn’t plead guilty to any offense involving destruction of media equipment, and that the order covers consequential damages.
“As part of his plea agreement, Haynes stipulated that he ‘picked up and slammed down multiple pieces of equipment that belonged to media outlets,’” the judges wrote, noting that he further stipulated sending the text messages describing that same conduct.
“Haynes does not dispute that he destroyed ZDF’s equipment, and the challenged restitution award covers only the cost of the equipment he destroyed—the very definition of direct, rather than consequential, damages,” they concluded.
Friday’s decision was made by Obama-appointed Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Patricia Millett; and Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee.
