Federal prosecutors working on the cases of Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and others filed court papers Wednesday saying they are appealing the sentences set by a judge in late May. Some of the Oath Keepers who were sentenced had already filed their own appeals.
A ninth man tried in the case, Thomas Caldwell, hasn’t been sentenced yet and subsequently is not part of the group being appealed.
The appeals will keep alive tests in court of aspects of the case against the Oath Keepers, potentially generating new law around the seditious conspiracy offenses — a rare charge that marked the most aggressive and politically charged response to the Capitol riot to date from the Justice Department.
Wednesday’s filings did not provide the reasoning or legal arguments for the DOJ’s appeals, but several of the Oath Keepers’ sentences were well below what prosecutors had asked for in court.
For instance, Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Rhodes to 18 years in prison. Yet prosecutors had sought 25 years. Kelly Meggs, the leader of the Florida contingent of the group, received from Mehta a 12-year sentence, though prosecutors had sought 21 years. Meggs’ sentence is among those being appealed as well.
Attorneys for Rhodes and Meggs, who along with four other defendants were convicted of seditious conspiracy, didn’t provide responses to the DOJ’s appeal on Wednesday. A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office that prosecuted the cases and filed the appeals also didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
A jury had found Rhodes and others guilty of working together to plot and execute the January 6 attack, which included some of the group moving together in military gear into the Capitol complex and…
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