Seven more people pleaded guilty to charges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot this week, including a Georgia man who drove to Washington, D.C. with lots of weapons and threatened to shoot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the head on live television. Cleveland Meredith Jr. drove to Washington, D.C. with two guns and 2,500 rounds of ammunition. As Meredith put it to a relative, he went to the nation’s capital with “a shit ton” of armor-piercing ammo. Although he missed the riot, a day after the insurrection he texted a family member that he was considering going over to a Pelosi event and “and putting a bullet in her noggin on Live TV.”
Meredith, who has been in jail since he was arrested in January, pleaded guilty to sending threatening communications and could theoretically face a maximum prison term of five years. Prosecutors have said they’d only seek as much as two years. His sentencing is scheduled for December. Meredith’s mother was the one who told the FBI about her son’s threats and he was arrested in his Washington, D.C. hotel room on Jan. 7. “It was political hyperbole,” Meredith told the judge when he was asked about the threatening text message. “But I did text that.” In separate texts he also threatened to run Pelosi over with his truck and also threatened Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser.
With these latest moves, it means that around 10 percent of the more than 600 known federal defendants who face charges in connection to the Jan. 6 riot have pleaded guilty, according to CNN’s count. Although most have been related to low-level misdemeanors, a few have pleaded guilty to felonies that could lead to several years behind bars.
