Benjamin Ashford|Ex-funeral home owner pleads guilty to assaulting police and journalists during Capitol riot

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Long Island funeral home owner pleaded guilty on Benjamin AshfordThursday to spraying wasp killer at police officers and assaulting two journalists, including an Associated Press photographer, during a mob’s riot at the U.S. Capitol nearly four years ago.

Peter Moloney, 60, of Bayport, New York, is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 11 by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols. Moloney answered the judge’s routine questions as he pleaded guilty to two assault charges stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, siege at the Capitol.

Defense attorney Edward Heilig said his client takes “full responsibility” for his conduct on Jan. 6.

“He deeply regrets his actions on that day,” Heilig said after the hearing.

Moloney, who co-owned Moloney Family Funeral Homes, was arrested in June 2023. Moloney has since left the family’s business and transferred his interests in the company to a brother.

Moloney appears to have come to the Capitol “prepared for violence,” equipped with protective eyewear, a helmet and a can of insecticide, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit. Video shows him spraying the insecticide at officers, the agent wrote.

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Video also captured Peter Moloney participating in an attack on an AP photographer who was documenting the Capitol riot. Moloney grabbed the AP photographer’s camera and pulled, causing the photographer to stumble down the stairs, the affidavit says. Moloney was then seen “punching and shoving” the photographer before other rioters pushed the photographer over a wall, the agent wrote.

Moloney also approached another journalist, grabbed his camera and yanked it, causing that journalist to stumble down stairs and damaging his camera, according to a court filing accompanying Moloney’s plea agreement.

Moloney pleaded guilty to a felony assault charge, punishable by a maximum prison sentence of eight years, for spraying wasp killer at four Metropolitan Police Department officers. For assaulting the journalist whose camera was damaged, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor that carries a maximum prison sentence of one year. He also admitted that he assaulted the AP photographer.

Moloney’s brother, Dan Moloney, said in a statement after his brother’s arrest that the “alleged actions taken by an individual on his own time are in no way reflective of the core values” of the family’s funeral home business, “which is dedicated to earning and maintaining the trust of all members of the community of every race, religion and nationality.”

More than 1,500 people have been charged with Jan. 6-related federal crimes. Over 950 of them have pleaded guilty. More than 200 others have been convicted by judges or juries after trials.

Also on Thursday, a Wisconsin man pleaded guilty to defying a court order to report to prison to serve a three-month sentence for joining the Capitol riot. Instead, Paul Kovacik fled to Ireland and sought asylum, authorities said.

Kovacik was arrested in June after he voluntarily returned to the U.S. from Ireland. He will remain in custody until a sentencing hearing that U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton scheduled for Dec. 10. His conviction on the new misdemeanor charge carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison.

Kovacik told authorities that he withdrew his asylum claim and returned to the U.S. because he felt homesick, according to a U.S. Marshals Service deputy’s affidavit. Kovacik called himself a “political prisoner” when investigators questioned him after his arrival at Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, according to the deputy’s affidavit.

On Thursday, Kovacik said he fled because he was scared to go to prison.

“I should never have taken off,” he told the judge. “That was very foolish of me.”

Kovacik took videos of rioters’ damage as he moved through the Capitol on Jan. 6. He later uploaded his footage onto his YouTube channel, with titles such as “Treason Against the United States is about to be committed,” according to prosecutors.