Which specific Jan. 6 defendants were indicted or convicted for carrying firearms on Capitol grounds and what were the outcomes?
Executive summary
A discrete but consequential group of January 6 defendants were formally accused or found guilty of bringing firearms onto Capitol grounds; among the named cases in public filings and reporting are Mario Mares, Jerod Bargar, Guy Wesley Reffitt, Christopher Michael Alberts, Mark Mazza and Timothy Hale‑Cusanelli, with outcomes ranging from guilty pleas and jury convictions to sentencing dates and—more recently—claims of clemency that complicate the post‑conviction landscape [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6].
1. The known, named convictions and pleas: who and what happened
Federal prosecutors and reporting identify several individual defendants who were charged and in many cases convicted for possessing firearms on Capitol grounds: Mario Mares of Texas was found guilty by a federal judge of felony counts including entering and remaining in a restricted area with a deadly weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm, with sentencing scheduled for Feb. 27, 2025 [1]; Jerod Bargar pleaded guilty to bringing a loaded 9mm semi‑automatic pistol onto Capitol grounds and was later sentenced in a case announced in January 2024 [2] [7]; Guy Wesley Reffitt was found guilty by a jury in 2022 on multiple counts including entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a firearm [3]; Christopher Michael Alberts was convicted on multiple counts and was found to have arrived at the Capitol with a holstered 9mm pistol [3]; and Mark Mazza admitted to carrying two loaded firearms on Capitol grounds and was convicted in matters documented by prosecutors and fact‑checkers [3].
2. One illustrative trial: Timothy Hale‑Cusanelli’s firearm conviction and sentence
Timothy Hale‑Cusanelli’s trial is an early, detailed example: the jury convicted him of transporting a firearm in furtherance of a civil disorder and related offenses, a verdict handed down March 8, 2022, that included counts for entering restricted grounds with a firearm and obstruction‑related charges—prosecutors sought a lengthy sentence tied to the firearm counts [4].
3. Scale and prosecutorial framing: firearms were not anomalies
More broadly, Department of Justice case tallies and legal analyses show that weapons charges were far from isolated; the Justice Department and commentators report roughly 180 rioters charged with entering restricted areas with “dangerous or deadly weapons,” a category that includes firearms alongside knives, tasers and improvised weapons, and Reuters and Lawfare summaries underscore that firearms and other weapons were present among the crowd [5] [8].
4. Outcomes: convictions, sentencing variability, and limits of public records
Outcomes in firearm cases have varied: some defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced (Jerod Bargar), others were convicted at trial and await or received sentencing (Mario Mares; Guy Reffitt; Christopher Alberts), and factual summaries list convictions and weapon descriptions that prosecutors used at trial [2] [1] [3]. Public reporting establishes convictions for the named individuals but does not uniformly supply every sentence length or post‑appeal disposition in the sources provided here, so a comprehensive roll‑call of every firearm‑related Jan. 6 conviction and final punishment cannot be compiled from these documents alone [1] [2] [3] [4].
5. Political aftershocks and caveats: pardons, commutations and contested narratives
The post‑trial landscape has been politically volatile: reporting and official pages indicate that broad pardons and commutations issued by the presidential administration in 2025 affected many Jan. 6 prosecutions and prompted the Justice Department to move in some cases, complicating the long‑term finality of sentences for large numbers of defendants and requiring caution when interpreting “convicted and serving” status from older press releases [6] [9]. Analysts also caution that while named individuals illustrate the presence of firearms, that evidence sits within a larger, contested field of over a thousand prosecutions in which roughly 180 involved charges tied to weapons—meaning named convictions are representative but not exhaustive [5] [8].
6. Bottom line for this record‑check
Public DOJ press releases and reputable reporting make clear that multiple specific Jan. 6 defendants were indicted or convicted for carrying firearms on Capitol grounds—Mario Mares, Jerod Bargar, Guy Reffitt, Christopher Alberts, Mark Mazza and Timothy Hale‑Cusanelli are among the publicly documented examples—and their outcomes include guilty verdicts, guilty pleas and sentencing events that vary by case, while political developments and incomplete public records mean this list is illustrative, not comprehensive [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [8].