Moss
WASHINGTON — Two Bartholomew County residents are due to appear virtually for a court hearing this week on charges of assaulting law enforcement officers and other charges stemming from their alleged roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
A status conference for Donald Lee Moss of Elizabethtown and James Link Behymer of Hope is scheduled for 1:45 p.m. on Friday before U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
Chutkan also is presiding over the criminal case against former President Donald Trump over his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Moss and Behymer have pleaded not guilty to civil disorder; assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, according to a grand jury indictment unveiled earlier this year.
The two men were released on personal recognizance following an arraignment in late May.
Federal prosecutors allege that Moss and Behymer were part of a group of “angry and violent rioters” who descended upon and assaulted D.C. Metropolitan police officers near the lower west terrace of the U.S. Capitol who were attempting to keep them from breaching the building on Jan. 6, 2021.
Federal authorities said in the complaint they were able to identify the two Bartholomew County men through cellphone records — including a cellphone number with an 812 area code that connected to a cell site that provided service inside the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection — as well as a witness described as “longtime associate of Moss and Behymer” who identified the two defendants after being shown still images.
Federal prosecutors also included images they claim are of the two men that were taken from officers’ body cameras and third-party footage.
The arrest of Moss and Behymer earlier this year raised the total number of current and former Bartholomew County residents who have faced criminal charges over their alleged roles in the deadly insurrection to three.
In April 2021, former Columbus resident and heavy metal musician Jon Schaffer pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his role in storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
