WASHINGTON — A Texas couple who once suggested the case against them should be dropped if former President Donald Trump was not charged in connection with the Capitol riot were sentenced to prison this week for assaulting two DC Police officers.
Mark Middleton, 55, of Forestburg, Texas, was sentenced Tuesday to 2.5 years in prison and three years of supervised release. His wife, Jalise Middleton, also of Forestburg, was sentenced to a little more than a year-and-a-half in prison and 2.5 years of supervised release.
Both were convicted in February of two counts each of assaulting police and one count of civil disorder, as well as four misdemeanors. A fourth felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding was dismissed by motion of the government in September following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the statute this summer.
In a sentencing memo, prosecutors said the Middletons discussed the possibility of violence ahead of Jan. 6 and talked about bringing weapons. Once on Capitol grounds, according to the memo, the Middletons “threw their bodies into the barricades” as police were struggling to hold back other rioters. When an officer made contact with Jalise while attempting to grab Mark – who, prosecutors said, he identified as an “agitator” – the Middletons allegedly grabbed him and attempted to pull him over the barricade. Jalise went further, prosecutors said, by repeatedly striking the officer multiple times, including one strike in which her engagement ring scratched his face.
When a second officer attempted to help his comrade, Mark allegedly turned a flagpole he was carrying into a club and struck the officer in the head with it. Prosecutors said the Middletons only retreated once they had been pepper sprayed.
In a video he recorded himself while still on Capitol grounds, prosecutors said Mark bragged about participating in the riot.
“We are on the front lines. We helped pushed down the barriers,” Mark reportedly said. “Jalise and I got pepper sprayed, clubbed and tear gassed! We had to retreat but more patriots pushed forward! They’re taking back our house!”
Prosecutors sought 87 months, or more than seven years, in prison for both Mark and Jalise. In addition to their conduct on Jan. 6, prosecutors said the Middletons have shown no remorse for their role in the riot and have attempted to profit off the publicity from their case.
“The Middletons – since their arrest, but particularly since their conviction – have continued to fan the flames of discord and civil strife,” prosecutors wrote. “Hardly a day goes by when one, if not – as it almost always is – both, of the Middletons do not spread lies about the 2020 election, defend, trumpet and exalt in their conduct at the Capitol, or celebrate other people who participated in the riot.”
Following their arrest, the Middletons founded the non-profit organization American Patriot Relief, which raises money to support Jan. 6 defendants. On the organization’s website, the Middletons describe themselves as having “first hand experience with J6 persecution.”
The Middletons were represented at trial by attorneys Steven Kiersh and Robert Jenkins, but both withdrew following their conviction. Two new attorneys, Stephen Brennwald and Kira Ann West, were appointed to represent them for the sentencing phase. Brennwald, who represented Mark, sought a period of home confinement to be followed by supervised release. West, representing Jalise, asked the judge to sentence her client to a sentence of less than 10 months in prison.
In both sentencing memos, the Middletons new attorneys stressed that they continue to believe it was police who instigated the assaults on them.
“The Court will find [Jalise] chose to exercise her constitutional right to trial because she believes what she did on January 6, 2021, was what any concerned citizen would do,” West wrote. “It is her sincere belief that she was attacked first and she to this day does not understand what she did to provoke the anger of the officer that assaulted her.”
Prosecutors sought to have the Middletons stepped back, or immediately sent to prison, following their sentencing hearing, however U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss denied that request and ordered them to self-surrender at a later date.