John Jefferson
Edward Kelley (images via FBI court filing).
A Jan. 6 rioter from Tennessee who was found guilty last week of breaking into the U.S. Capitol and assaulting police officers just got hit with another conviction for plotting to kill the FBI agents who investigated him.
Edward Kelley, 33, was convicted once again on Wednesday — this time in the Eastern District of Tennessee — on charges of conspiracy to murder federal employees, solicitation to commit a crime of violence and influencing a federal official by threat following a three-day trial, the Department of Justice said. He’s due to be sentenced in May, a little over a month after he’s scheduled to be sentenced in his Washington, D.C., case for his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks.
In that D.C. case, Kelley was found guilty of three felonies — including civil disorder, one count of destruction of government property in an amount over $1,000 and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers — for allegedly storming the Capitol building and attacking a police officer. Evidence presented at his trial in Knoxville this week showed how he “developed a plan to murder law enforcement” while his D.C. charges and trial were pending, according to DOJ officials.
Prosecutors said Kelley compiled a “kill list” of FBI agents and employees who were probing him and his Jan. 6 conduct, which he then distributed to “conspirators,” along with images of the targets. They described how Kelley planned “assassination missions” for each of his targets and talked about them with others.
“A cooperating defendant, who previously pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy, testified that he and Kelley planned attacks on the Knoxville FBI Field Office using car bombs and incendiary devices appended to drones,” DOJ officials said Wednesday, in reference to co-defendant Austin Carter, who pleaded guilty in November. “He also testified that the conspirators strategized about assassinating FBI employees in their homes and in public places such as movie theaters.”
The Knoxville Joint Terrorism Task Force — composed of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies — was behind Kelley’s arrest, according to DOJ officials, with it being led by the FBI. During his trial, prosecutors played recordings of Kelley talking about taking a “course of action” for his murder plots, uttering phrases like “start it,” “attack,” and “take out their office,” officials said.
“Every hit has to hurt,” Kelley said in one recording. “Every hit has to hurt.”
Kelley is facing a maximum sentence of life in prison, per the DOJ.
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