That’s it, I’m boycotting all the Avernums!
ShivaX
6723
Depends how fast you were going and how drunk you were when you hit it.
You can capsize a boat pretty easy with enough speed and stupidity. A log makes it a lot easier.
Canuck
6724
Am I the only one who is amazed and a little scared by the fact that they got this guy by matching his voice to some interview? Like, did they suspect him in the first place and then used the interview to confirm that the voice was his or are they using huge databases to match vocal records to records of the people caught on audio that day?
ShivaX
6725
Hard to say, but probably the former.
If you recognized your neighbor in an FBI bulletin, odds are good you’d tell the FBI. Once they have a name and a lead, then it becomes a matter of tracking stuff down. Also they had the phone information of everyone who went in there, don’t forget. So they probably had a cell phone owned by one Philip Vogel out of Pittsburgh and all the warrants in the history of ever. Cross reference that with their photo/video evidence, hit up Facebook, local news, oh look it’s the same dude.
So not too much to be scared of. Don’t attack government facilities with their own cellular infrastructure. Like the Capitol. Or the White House, major military bases and the like. Or if you do, you know, don’t bring your fucking phone along with you. This goes for smaller crimes as well. If you want to kill or rob someone who lives in a different city, don’t take your phone along, makes your alibi a lot less credible when the phone company tells the cops you where your phone was the night of the crime.
The Capitol, more than most buildings, has a vast cellular and wireless data infrastructure of its own to make communications efficient in a building made largely of stone and that extends deep underground and has pockets of shielded areas. Such infrastructure, such as individual cell towers, can turn any connected phone into its own tracking device.
Phone records make determining the owners of these devices trivially easy. Congressional investigators and federal prosecutors can also identify devices and users who may have connected wittingly or automatically to congressional guest WiFi networks — unless rioters made a point of deactivating their devices or leaving them behind during the takeover.
You know, if you get all excited for a bit of criminal mayhem, one would think that “don’t take your cellphone” would be a cardinal rule by now.
That, plus “don’t film yourself criming.”
That’s why TV-show criminals always use burner phones. The episode would only 15 minutes long if they didn’t.
Ephraim
6729
Yeah, but The Wire (a key learning tool for wannabe criminals) was a little too … ethnic for the insurrectionists. They missed out on some key criming knowledge.
Warning: use of the N-word as per the original show in the clip included below.
Wait, that’s the guy that made those games? That fucking sucks, I like those games. :(
Pretty sure it’s a joke because they happen to have the same name. (Actually, not even, Spiderweb is Jeff Vogel, this is Philip).
That’s… not super funny, and it’s impossible to parse in text. Also, I just looked and it’s Jeff Vogel that makes those games, so a totally different name. Going just off the last name wouldn’t make sense, I know a Vogel in real life and I doubt she has anything to do with making those games. Funny, haha, I guess.
I get the feeling – after listening to Ken on ATPL and reading a few other legal minds that the sentences on a lot of these folks aren’t going to be real gentle.
Typically, the reasons someone convicted of a crime gets a light sentence is that the prosecution makes a deal because they know their case isn’t necessarily a slam dunk, and making a deal is preferable to the whims of a jury in a trial. (Which is why typically people in mass arrest scenarios sometimes get off fairly lightly.)
Or, the convicted defendant is able to offer something to the authorities – names of others, incriminating evidence, etc.
Or, the convicted defendant has a pretty spotless previous record. They did a thing, but they’re sorry. They’re unlikely to do it again.
In so many of these cases, it appears that federal and local DC prosecutors have:
- Stone cold evidence that doesn’t rely much on eyewitness testimony
- Which means they don’t need “I was there with so-and-so” deals, either, and
- A lot of these yayhoos committed a crime/crimes that a judge is likely to find to be very serious, and a lot of these yayhoos aren’t exactly remorseful and seem like potential candidates to do similar shit again.
The one exception to point 2 is some of these conspiracy cases the DOJ is looking into. As they move up the ladder on groups like the Oathkeepers or Proud Boys, I can envision that if they can get some of the flunkies to flip to get to the big cheeses in these groups the prosecutors will make deals.
Alstein
6734
I thought most of the folks we’ve caught so far have no priors. This is why so many got very lenient bail.
I could see some of the defendants thinking without a deal, let’s go to trial and hope a Trumpy gets them off by jury nullification.
As for the groups, they’ll rat easier than most other groups- they’re soft.
Yes.
Definitely a factor. Low flight risks.
But…despite those two things, the judge or judges are likely to take two things into strongly into account on sentencing:
- Making sure that there is clear precedential understanding of the severity of this crime and incident, and
- Entertaining the notion of the perpetrators’ lack of remorse and likelihood to do this again.
If any attorneys are giving their clients that particular nugget of legal advice, those attorneys should be disbarred for malpractice. You’re spectacularly unlikely to win, and it seems like a great way to signal to a judge that your client doesn’t seem to think that federal laws apply to him or her. Which is a fun way to get maximum sentences.
IANAL, but it seems to me like the best strategy would be for defendants to lean on “I’ll tell you what you want to know about others I was there with” alongside genuine or genuine-seeming remorse and statements about “I understand that the election results are real, after all” stuff…and then leaning heavily into that lack of prior offense thing, if they have that. That seems like the best bet to get probations or suspended sentences or time served or other leniency.
Performative goofballery a la Michael Flynn seems like a good way to do some serious time.
By a group that’s been gorging at the trough of contempt and mistrust for the government for four decades, no less.
That’s just how cults do.
Chuck
6737
If you left your cellphone at home, how would you take selfies of your treason to post on your social platforms to impress your friends and own the libs?
Again, a lot of these idiots thought they were overthrowing the election for real, Trump would be sworn in, and there would be no repercussions. Indeed, they thought they’d be worshipped as heroes. OF COURSE THEY WOULD DOCUMNENT THEIR ROLE.
Zylon
6739
Apparently even airplane mode is too much of an imposition. Gotta livestream your insurrection.
I assume you just bring a normal non cell phone camera? Go Pro’s aren’t going to tell a cell phone tower who you are. I appreciate most of the people there aren’t exactly into things like “planning” or “consequences”, so that might have been a bit rare.
Menzo
6741
Yep, this. Keep in mind that the people who broke into the Capitol Building were both the most die-hard Trumpists and likely the dumbest of all of them. They’ve been living in a fantasy land for at least four years and I agree that they probably all thought they’d be lauded as heroes.
