WASHINGTON — A jury convicted a Virginia man and woman on all counts against them Monday for participating in a mob assault on police who were defending a tunnel at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Casey Tryon-Castro, 34, of Roanoke, Virginia, and Micaiah Joseph, 33, of Triangle, Virginia, were convicted following a jury trial last week before U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras. Tryon-Castro was convicted of eight counts, including felony counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding police, civil disorder and robbery. Joseph was also convicted of assaulting, resisting or impeding police and civil disorder along with four misdemeanors.
According to charging documents, Tryon-Castro can be seen wearing a red-and-white beanie at the front of a line of rioters who were attempting to force their way past police inside the Lower West Terrace Tunnel on Jan. 6. During the melee, investigators said Tryon-Castro encouraged other rioters to make their way to the front lines and, at one point, grabbed an officer’s riot shield and ripped it away from them.
Investigators said Joseph can also be seen wearing distinctive headgear – a tricorn hat and gas mask – while he was also on the front lines in the tunnel. According to charging documents, after one successful push by police, Joseph was “among the first rioters to approach the police line again.” Investigators said Joseph can be seen using a nearby set of doors to leverage his weight against officers and attempt to push them back into the tunnel.
Joseph is at least the third Capitol rioter who wore a tricorn – a style of hat popular around the time of the American Revolution – to be convicted. In May 2024, Isaac Yoder, a Missouri locksmith who wore a full Revolutionary War costume, was convicted of four misdemeanors and sentenced later that year to 12 months in prison. In March, Derek Nelson, a 30-year-old Marine Corps veteran who wore a colonial peacoat and a tricorn hat on Jan. 6, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building. He was scheduled to be sentenced on July 10.
Tryon-Castro and Joseph were two of five defendants indicted in February 2023 in connection with the attack on police in the Lower West Terrace Tunnel. One, 60-year-old Patrick Bournes, of California, pleaded guilty in February to one felony count of civil disorder. Another, 38-year-old Troy Weeks of New York, pleaded guilty last month to felony counts of civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding police along with four misdemeanors. The remaining defendant, 39-year-old Adam Villareal, has never been arrested and remains wanted by the FBI.
Contreras did not immediately schedule a sentencing hearing for Tryon-Castro and Joseph. Bournes was scheduled to be sentenced later this month on June 28. Weeks was scheduled to be sentenced in November.
In the 41 months since the Capitol riot, more than 1,400 people have been charged with crimes ranging from disorderly conduct to seditious conspiracy. Of those, more than 800 have pleaded guilty and another 170 have been convicted at trial.