Mom and son who passed for Senate, convicted of riot 1/6

A Tennessee A man and his mother were arraigned Tuesday on charges of storming the Capitol, where they brought plastic zip-lock handcuffs into the building. Senate gallery when the mob stormed the building, court records show.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lambert found Eric Manchel and his mother, Lisa Eisenhart, guilty on all 10 counts, including conspiracy to prevent Congress from appointing the president Joe BidenWin the 2020 election on January 6, 2021. The judge plans to sentence them both on September 8.

Lambert settled the case without a jury after a “conditional trial,” an unusual trial in which defendants plead not guilty to the charges but agree with prosecutors that certain facts are true. At least three dozen people involved in the Capitol riots settled their cases in a way that allows defendants to retain their right to appeal rather than choose a traditional trial or plea.

A jury trial in the couple’s case was scheduled to begin last week. Emails were sent to their attorneys Tuesday seeking comment.

Munchel, 32, of Nashville, Tennessee, worked at the restaurant. Eisenhart, 59, of Woodstock, Ga., worked as a field nurse.

On January 6, they visited the then president Donald Trump“Stop Theft” rally before joining the crowd marching on the Capitol. Both were wearing tactical vests. Manchel had a stun gun on his right thigh in a holster.

Grabbing the plastic handcuffs they found inside the Capitol, Muenchel and Eisenhart entered the gallery above the Senate chamber and stepped over the railings that separated parts of the gallery. Eisenhart chanted, “Treason! Betrayal!”

Manchel “gladly” entered the Capitol during the riots while carrying a dangerous weapon, a taser, the judge said in a February 2021 ruling.

“By word and deed Manchel supported the violent overthrow of the United States government. He is a clear danger to our republic,” Lambert wrote.

After the riot, Eisenhart told a London newspaper that she would “rather die as a 57-year-old woman than live under oppression.”

“I’d rather die and I’d rather fight,” she added, according to the judge’s ruling.

Eisenhart also claimed she took the plastic handcuffs to keep them from “bad actors,” the judge noted.

More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the deadly Jan. 6 riots. More than 600 of them pleaded guilty or were convicted after trials decided by juries or judges. More than 450 of them were convicted, more than half were sentenced to imprisonment from seven days to 10 years.