WASHINGTON — The attorney for a Pennsylvania man accused of pepper spraying three police officers defending the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6 wants his client’s on-camera confession thrown out of court.
Julian Khater sat handcuffed to a wall inside an FBI Interrogation room for more than rqo hours on March 14 last year as Special Agent Riley Palmtree pressed him for answers. On a small table in front of them, Palmtree had video and images laid out on a small table appearing to show the State College, Pennsylvania, man spraying three police officers with a chemical irritant. One of those officers was Brian Sicknick, who died a day later after suffering multiple strokes. A medical examiner ruled he died of natural causes, but said everything that happened on Jan. 6 contributed to it.
“I've never been in this situation before," Khater can be heard telling Palmtree in a video of the interrogation obtained by WUSA9. "I just...like legally..."
“I can tell you legally where you’re at,” Palmtree said, “You’re in big (expletive) trouble.”
It was an interview that should have never gone forward, according to a motion to suppress filed by his attorney Chad Siegel. Siegel alleges the FBI “extracted an invalid waiver of [his] Miranda rights, through means of coercion and deception.”
After convincing Khater to answer questions without an attorney present, investigators told Khater they already had video that allegedly showed him spraying three officers defending the Capitol. The FBI never mentioned Sicknick by name during Khater’s interview.
Still, Palmtree demanded answers about whether Khater, who allegedly grabbed the spray out of his co-defendant George Tanios’ backpack, used a standard pepper spray dispenser on police or a much higher-volume version known as bear spray, which was also found by the FBI during a search of Tanios' home.
“It looks like you used this on a human being,” Palmtree told Khater.
“That is like, what people are going to look at. And that's what people are going to argue about,” he continued. “That's what people are going to try to get to the bottom of, you know what I mean? That's what people see right now. The photos, we have video I have so much more video, please don't make me go through all the video and the evidence that I have.”
Palmtree told Khater admitting to using pepper spray on officers would be better when he got to court than if he was found to have used the bear spray.
But to disavow use of the bear spray, Khater had to admit to using the pepper spray — thereby admitting to assaulting police.
“I'm not asking for you to be like, yes, that's me,” Palmtree tells Khater roughly halfway through the more than two-hour interview. “I'm just asking for you to tell me what was being used. And, I mean, it's right there. You know what I'm saying? It's right there.”
“Yeah, I would feel a lot more comfortable if...if I had a lawyer answering that,” Khater answers, “Because as I said, I know, I know you know everything, like you said, and you see everything, but I just don't know. I don't know the implications of what I'm saying.”
An hour later in the interrogation, Khater would again suggest to the agents he needs a lawyer present after the agent asked Khater for consent to search his car, which Khater agreed to before signing the statement he gave to the FBI. In it he admitted to assaulting police with pepper spray during the insurrection.
The judge has yet to rule on the motion to suppress Khater’s recorded confession, although a similar Capitol riot confession was allowed in court in the case of Danny Rodriguez, who admitted to electroshocking then-DC Police Officer Michael Fanone in the neck.
Khater and Tanios were scheduled to begin a jury trial in D.C. on June 6, but their attorneys' filed an unopposed motion on Monday asking for that date to be vacated to allow them further time to discuss a plea deal with the government.
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