BASTROP, Texas — Two men who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol have been released from federal prison in Bastrop.
It comes after President Donald Trump issued a pardon for nearly every participant charged in connection with the attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power, including rioters who attacked police.
According to KVUE’s media partners at the Austin American-Statesman, 43-year-old Christopher Ray Grider and 40-year-old Roberto Minuta were released from the Bastrop Federal Corrections Institution on Monday.
Records show Orange County native Minuta was sentenced in June 2023 to four-and-a-half years in prison for a sedition plot with the Oath Keepers militia. Affidavits show he “aggressively berated and taunted U.S. Capitol police officers” and stormed the Capitol in military-style hear.
Grider is the owner of the Kissing Tree Vineyards in Eddy, near Waco. He was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for destruction or damage to government property, knowingly entering and remaining in a restricted area without authority and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. He helped break the glass doors at the Speaker’s Lobby, which led to the deadly shooting of Ashli Babbitt.
President Trump also wiped away Texas man Stewart Rhodes’ seditious conspiracy sentence as part of the pardons of about 1,500 others.
Rhodes, from Granbury, is the founder of the Oath Keepers and had been sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Rhodes received one of the harshest punishments for the Capitol attack. He and his militia group were intent on keeping President Trump in power at all costs.
His attorney confirmed he was released on Tuesday after an order from Trump.