A Tennessee man facing charges for assaulting a police officer during the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, has been charged with conspiring to kill law enforcement officers who investigated his case, the Department of Tennessee said. Justice.
Edward Kelley, 33, of Maryville, Tennessee, and an alleged accomplice, Austin Carter, 26, of Knoxville, Tennessee, were charged with conspiracy, retaliation against a federal official, interstate communication of a threat, and solicitation to commit a crime of violence. , according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The two men are being held without bail after a hearing Friday in Knoxville federal court.
Kelley was arrested in May after allegedly assaulting a police officer during the Capitol riot. According to the complaint, Kelley had a list of personal information such as names and phone numbers of 37 law enforcement officers who had investigated his role in the attack.
Kelley recruited Carter and another person at his workplace to help him with the new plot, according to the complaint. The anonymous co-worker decided to cooperate with police and made secret recordings of a discussion about Kelley’s plans to kill officials and attack the FBI office in Knoxville.
The co-worker received an envelope containing the list and a USB flash drive with video footage from Kelley’s home security camera showing at least one officer approaching Kelley’s home to search it earlier this year, authorities said.
Authorities said the three men met at Jarvis Park in Maryville on December 3 to discuss what Kelley called “assassination missions,” according to the indictment. Kelley urged the witness to “reach out to his police friends and see what information he can gather about the people on the list.”
Charging
Efforts to contact Kelley’s family members were unsuccessful, and Kelley’s attorney in the January 6 case, Marina Medvin of Alexandria, Virginia, recently withdrew from her case. She is looking for a public defender.
On December 13, as the witness and Carter were finishing a work shift, Carter gave the witness the list and told him to memorize it and then “burn everything in the envelope,” according to the complaint. The witness then took the envelope to authorities and agreed to make “undercover recordings” of Kelley and Carter for the FBI, according to the complaint.
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