A long-time nurse from Woodstock and her son, a Nashville bartender known as the “zip-tie guy,” were sentenced Friday to multiple years in prison for their part in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
Lisa Marie Eisenhart, 59, and Eric Munchel, 32, were among a small group of mother-son duos charged in the riot that forced members of Congress to flee their chambers as angry partisans battled with police for entry into the Capitol.
Eisenhart was sentenced to 30 months in prison in a sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. Munchel got 57 months. Both will serve another three years on probation after their release.
The pair were found guilty in a one-day bench trial in April of two felonies each — obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to commit obstruction. Munchel, who wore a Taser on his belt during the riot, also was found guilty of three additional felonies related to carrying a dangerous weapon into the Capitol. They additionally were found guilty of several misdemeanors related to their entry into the Capitol.
In the chaos of the day, a photo taken of a masked Munchel, dressed in black tactical gear with a handful of plastic wrist restraints, leaping through the Senate gallery emerged as one of the riot’s most enduring images. Prosecutors believe Munchel picked up the handful of plastic handcuffs from a police checkpoint inside the Capitol. Internet sleuths who joined the hunt to identify the rioters gave Munchel the nickname “zip-tie guy” before his identity was discovered.
Eisenhart’s outfit that day was less memorable, but she, too, wore a tactical vest over her plaid flannel shirt as the two made their way into and through the Capitol. Prosecutors cited their use of tactical gear as evidence they were “prepared for violence on January 6 and projected their willingness to engage in it.”
Both mother and son penetrated farther than all but a small number of rioters as security cameras and Munchel’s own cell phone recorded their movements.
Although the pair were only in the Capitol for a total of 12 minutes, prosecutors cited Eisenhart’s vocal encouragement of rioters to fight with police, Munchel’s decision to carry a Taser, and statements they made before, during and after their entry into the building as evidence that their intent was to interfere with the electoral count. In crafting that narrative, prosecutors were aided by Munchel’s decision to record their entire trip on his cell phone, which he hooked into a forward-facing mount on his vest.
“Probably the last time I’ll be able to enter the building with armor and (expletive) weapons,” he said to his mother standing in front of the Capitol. “I guess they thought we were playing!”
Eisenhart was equally expressive when speaking to a reporter after leaving the Capitol.
“This country was founded on revolution,” Eisenhart told the Times of London. “If they’re going to take every legitimate means from us, and we can’t even express ourselves on the internet, we won’t even be able to speak freely, what is America for? I’d rather die as a 57-year-old woman than live under oppression. I’d rather die and would rather fight.”
Credit: Nashville Police Department
Credit: Nashville Police Department
Prosecutors got exactly the sentence they had sought for Munchel. The 30 months for Eisenhart was more lenient. In her case, prosecutors had asked for 46 months. In memos to the judge, both defendants argued for significantly less time based on their lack of prior serious criminal convictions and their personal lives outside of Jan. 6.
In one memo, Gregory Smith, Eisenhart’s Washington-based attorney, outlined his client’s difficult life story, including abusive relationships with her father and her ex-husband, the latter of which forced her to flee with her two young sons to a women’s shelter in Dalton. With support from the shelter, Eisenhart graduated from a local college and began a 30-year nursing career. With a felony conviction, that career is very much in jeopardy, Smith wrote.
Munchel’s lawyer, Joseph Allen of Branson, Mo., wrote that Munchel “regrets his unlawful conduct,” while also decrying “fearmongering descriptions” of the riot itself.
“From 1776 to the present, Americans have always undertaken to voice their freedom of self-rule in a boisterous manner,” Allen wrote in a defense memo to the court. “Mr. Munchel is not a rioter nor is he an insurrectionist. He was and is a law-abiding citizen who found himself caught up in the events of a day which began lawfully and peacefully and then devolved into the situation in which he finds himself now.”
Allen chalked up Munchel’s decision to come to Washington in full tactical gear to “a certain fashion taste” and his possession of a Taser to a desire to defend himself from attacks by antifa. Munchel is a “loving husband and father-to-be,” Allen wrote.
“He evidences what it means to be an American with his love of God, family, and Country,” he wrote.
Attorneys for both Eisenhart and Munchel asked the judge for sentences of 12 months.
Eisenhart and Munchel were among the first Georgians arrested in the days following the Capitol riot and spent 11 weeks in jail before they were granted bond at the end of March 2021.
Eisenhart had sought to delay sentencing to see if the United States Supreme Court takes up an appeal of the U.S. Department of Justice’s use of “obstruction” in relation to the Jan. 6 riot. Federal prosecutors have charged hundreds of defendants in the Capitol riot with obstructing Congress by delaying the official electoral vote count in the 2020 presidential election.
U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth denied the motion to delay sentencing. Prosecutors argued that Eisenhart could not indefinitely delay sentencing by waiting to see what a higher court may or may not do.
“Just as defendants have due process rights to speedy adjudication of their criminal cases, ... the government and public have interests in speedy sentencing too,” the prosecution wrote in a reply to Eisenhart’s motion.
So far 28 people with ties to Georgia have been charged in the Jan. 6 investigation. Nationally more than 1146 have faced charges in the sprawling case.
