Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III said he and Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs are being held in solitary confinement in the District of Columbia jail as a punishment for being outspoken in the media about their seditious-conspiracy convictions in relation to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.
Rhodes said he and Meggs were put in “involuntary protective custody” on the orders of Deputy Warden Kathleen Landerkin, who made headlines in 2021 for refusing GOP lawmakers entry into the jail for a welfare check of Jan. 6 pretrial detainees.
Rhodes said he is being treated like he’s Hannibal Lecter, the fictional serial killer and cannibal from popular novels and Hollywood films.
“We have to be cuffed to walk out into the shower,” Rhodes told The Epoch Times. “And to go rec, like to go to outdoor rec, I have to be shackled in a chain around my waist and ankle chains, taken outside, and put in an outdoor cage.
“It’s the same thing I went through in Oklahoma,” Rhodes said, referring to his pretrial detention before being moved to the D.C. area.
Seditious Conspiracy
Rhodes was sentenced on May 25 to 18 years in federal prison for his conviction on charges of seditious conspiracy, tampering with documents or proceedings, and obstruction of an official proceeding. He was acquitted on two other charges stemming from Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.Meggs was sentenced on May 26 to 12 years in prison for seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent members of Congress from discharging their duties, and tampering with documents or proceedings. He was acquitted of destruction of government property.
Federal prosecutors contend Rhodes and other members of the Oath Keepers conspired to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6 to disrupt or prevent the ceremonial counting of Electoral College votes from the November 2020 presidential election.
Rhodes said he was in solitary for more than a week when a housing officer told him he was ordered held in what inmates call “the hole” by Landerkin, ostensibly because he and Meggs were sentenced to prison in May.
Other Oath Keepers sentenced to prison have faced no such treatment, Rhodes said.
“No one knew any reason why we were here,” Rhodes said of his first 10 days in solitary. “They finally had the housing officer talk to me. He said it came from the deputy warden, Landerkin. She ordered us here, and the only reason given is because we had been sentenced.”
Sylvia Lane, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Corrections, told The Epoch Times: “Mr. Rhodes’ current housing assignment is related to the facility’s safety and security protocols, not his political affiliation.”
Landerkin drew the ire of GOP lawmakers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), in late 2021 after reports emerged of Jan. 6 pretrial detainees allegedly being beaten by staff, kept in solitary confinement for months, denied access to attorneys, forced to live in cells covered in black mold with feces on the walls, and denied medical care and proper diet.
‘Unusually Cruel’
Greene released a sampling of posts from Landerkin’s now-deleted Twitter page that expressed anti-white and anti-Trump sentiments, including one post that read, “[expletive] everyone who supports Trump.”Rhodes said he suspects the solitary confinement is really because he has been outspoken in the media.
“I think I think Kelly Meggs and I are being punished for doing interviews,” he said. “We’ve been unrepentant and outspoken.
“At sentencing, [Judge Amit] Mehta even said that. He quoted an interview I had done, continuing to call the [2020] election out as stolen and unconstitutional, but it was. And he’s like, ‘Nothing has changed.’ And so he made it very clear that he’s punishing me for my free speech.”
Rhodes said he ultimately blames the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for his treatment at the jail.
“It’s the DOJ,” he said. “They’re the ones who are in charge of the Marshal’s Service who are in charge of these contracts [with jails]. That’s where it’s coming from. It’s the prosecutors wanting to punish us. That’s what I think.”
Criminalizing Speech
Rhodes said he is trying to raise money to pursue his appeal on the grounds he believes his conviction was for speech protected by the First Amendment.“They are intentionally circumventing the Brandenburg versus Ohio standard for free speech,” Rhodes said. “And they’re criminalizing free speech. That’s what’s going on and it’s not going to stop. It’s going to keep going.”
He said former President Donald Trump should fund his appeal since the Oath Keepers trials were used as a dry run for Jan. 6 conspiracy charges that Rhodes said will be lodged against Trump.
“They should be putting together a legal defense for us,” Rhodes said. “We should be well-funded. We should have Alan Dershowitz be my attorney because this is a flagship case.
“If they don’t defend me, and my appeal is not successful, they’re just going to roll right over President Trump and anybody else.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Dershowitz for comment, but did not receive a reply by press time.
Rhodes said Trump should not ignore what the DOJ has done to the Oath Keepers.
“Once again, I feel like it’s ‘Horton Hears a Who.’ No one’s gonna listen to me because I’m just some guy in a jail cell thrown under the bus and forgotten about,” Rhodes said. “I’m right. You watch. They’re going to do that. It’s coming.”
