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Jury selection begins for former Uniontown man on trial for Capitol riot

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This photograph included in federal court documents allegedly shows Peter Schwartz wearing a plaid shirt and holding a wooden club while participating in the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

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Peter Schwartz

Jury selection began Tuesday morning in the federal trial of a former Fayette County man and two other co-defendants charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Peter Schwartz attended the proceeding before U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C., nearly two years after he was accused of using pepper spray on police officers protecting Congress from the riotous crowd.

The makeup of the jury was not immediately known late Tuesday, but the trial for Schwartz and two other co-defendants, Jeffrey Scott Brown and Markus Maly, is expected to begin Nov. 29.

Schwartz, 48, was living in Uniontown working as a traveling laborer when federal investigators said he and his wife, Shelly Stallings, traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend a rally in support of former president Donald Trump. The two then walked with the crowd to the Capitol, where federal investigators alleged they both used pepper spray on police officers and attempted to enter the building. Schwartz is also accused of carrying a wooden baton during the riot that investigators claim he wielded as a weapon.

Schwartz, who is originally from Kentucky but had been in the area for several months, was arrested Feb. 4, 2021, while at his Cleveland Avenue apartment in Uniontown. He’s been jailed without bond since his arrest and fired several of his defense attorneys while consistently challenging federal prosecutors over his detention in Washington, D.C.

He is facing trial on charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon; civil disorder; aiding and abetting; obstruction of an official proceeding; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; engaging in violence; disorderly and disruptive conduct; and act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.

His wife, Stallings, was charged in connection with the case in February and pleaded guilty Aug. 24. The sentencing range for the charges means she could face 46 to 57 months in federal prison for her role in the riot, although Mehta will have discretion on her punishment when she’s sentenced Jan. 13. Stallings returned to Kentucky after Schwartz’s arrest and the couple is now estranged.

It was not known if she would testify at Schwartz’s trial as part of her plea deal with prosecutors.

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