WASHINGTON — On April 1, a superseding indictment was unsealed in federal court in the District of Columbia charging five men with assaulting Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Officers, as well as other crimes, during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 that disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress in the process of affirming the presidential election.
Jack Wade Whitton, 30, of Locust Grove, Georgia, was arrested Thursday in Atlanta. The indictment alleges that Whitton, along with Jeffrey Sabol of Kittredge, Colorado, and Peter Francis Stager of Conway, Arkansas, assaulted an MPD officer, referred to as “B.M.”, with a baton, flag, pole and a crutch.
The indictment also accuses Clayton Ray Mullins of Benton, Kentucky, of assaulting the same officer, as well as a second MPD officer, whom Whitton and Sabol are also accused of separately assaulting.
The indictment further alleges that Michael John Lopatic Sr. of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, assaulted a third MPD officer.
This case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Counterterrorism Section of the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Security Division, with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the Northern District of Georgia, the Southern District of New York, the Eastern District of Arkansas, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the Western District of Kentucky.
The case is being investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office, Atlanta Field Office, New York Field Office, Philadelphia Field Office, Little Rock Field Office, and the Louisville Field Office, along with the Metropolitan Police Department and the U.S. Capitol Police.
An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.