Federal judge stops short of jailing pardoned Tri-Cities Jan. 6er
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Judge imposes stricter probation, mental health and cyber limits.
- Taranto livestreams contradicted court orders.
- President Trump pardon removed Jan.6 charges; gun and threat convictions remain.
A Tri-Cities man pardoned for his role in the Jan. 6 riots has been given one more chance to avoid heading back to jail after convictions on gun and bomb threat charges.
Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia asked a federal judge at a recent hearing to put Taylor Taranto back in jail for alleged probation violations.
At a Friday hearing, Judge Carl Nichols again ordered Taranto to return to Washington state. He also imposed a variety of new restrictions that could land Taranto in jail if he refuses to comply.
Taranto, 37, of Pasco, had previously been ordered to leave the Washington, D.C., area and report to an Eastern Washington federal probation office after his October sentencing and release from jail, but so far seems to have refused doing so.
In a court filing Taranto argues that he was only emailed the order to report to the office by Dec. 15 the day before the deadline.
However, in videos on his social media accounts, Taranto discussed the hearings in detail, including the need to return to Washington state. For a few days he claimed he was driving cross-country, but by the following week he was posting videos he claimed were at the Pentagon.
Taranto claimed he had been trying to obtain press credentials.
After another hearing Taranto held up a court order showing himself in a parking lot near the U.S. Capitol building, which he has been barred from going to. That hearing resulted in an order to stay away from Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-MD, the congressman’s home and office, as well as the U.S. Capitol building.
While the order was redacted in court filings, Taranto displayed it on social media after the Dec. 5 hearing and explained what it said with the U.S. Capitol visible in the background.
“The Capitol police handed this to me and my lawyer,” Taranto said in the video. “The reason you are being barred – harassing behavior.”
“Yea, he’s officially banned from the Capitol, who gives a s--t?” he said.
Taranto continued for about two hours, playing other videos and claiming he had “won” the hearing.
“Yea, I’ll gladly go home for Christmas,” he said in the video. “I won the battle, you dumb b---h.”
Changes to probation
The new conditions on Taranto’s probation greatly increase the restrictions he is facing.
The first condition is a more stringent mental health treatment plan, which will be supervised in consultation with his treatment provider. The probation officer will need to approve the provider, location, type of treatment, duration and intensity.
Taranto also must enter into a cybercrime management program. He will have to inventory all of his electronic internet devices and cannot buy new ones unless approved by his probation officer. He will also have to give his probation officer a list of his social media accounts and cannot create new ones.
The new conditions also reiterate that Taranto cannot enter U.S. Capitol grounds or the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is the federal building he threatened to blow up.
The judge also ordered two redacted conditions. These may be related to the no contact orders for lawmakers he has threatened or harassed. Those lawmakers include former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Raskin, former Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama.
The justification included in the court order specifically states the new conditions are intended to “prevent Taranto from harming individuals and institutions that Taranto has threatened in the past.”
It is unclear what deadline they gave Taranto to report to the Eastern Washington district probation office.
Guns and bomb threat conviction
Taranto is a former webmaster for the Franklin County Republican Party and U.S. Navy veteran. Local Republican Party officials previously told the Herald that they had cut ties with Taranto months before his 2023 arrest due to his erratic behavior.
He was convicted this year of carrying guns without a license, unlawful possession of ammunition and false information or hoaxes after a series of threats to lawmakers and the former president.
He also threatened to use his van as a bomb to blow up a federal building and claimed in private messages that he had a contract to kill former Vice President Kamala Harris, according to court documents.
At the time he was also targeting Raskin. Taranto believes that the House Committee on Jan. 6, led by Raskin, hid evidence of a cover-up.
In the days before his arrest near former President Barack Obama’s D.C. home, Taranto had been in Raskin’s Takoma Park, Maryland neighborhood allegedly going onto the campus of a nearby school attended by the congressman’s children, according to prosecutors.
Raskin recently brought the incident up at a House Judiciary meeting where he spoke about Jan. 6 defendants committing new crimes.
Taranto’s 2023 arrest was made using an expedited warrant related to the Jan. 6 charges, which were initially part of the same case.
He was arrested after livestreaming himself trying to gain access to Obama’s home.
Taranto was sentenced to time served with three years probation in October. He was held without bail for nearly two years after Nichols agreed he presented a threat to the community.
The Capitol riot charges were dropped after President Donald Trump issued a mass pardon when he returned to office.
He was also a co-defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit for allegedly helping another rioter attack a Capitol police officer, who later died by suicide because of a concussion suffered in the attack.
David Walls-Kaufman admitted to “scuffling” with the officer during his own trial on charges related to the riot.
A review panel ruled that Officer Jeffrey Smith suffered a concussion which led to his suicide after returning to duty. They said the injuries suffered in the riot were the “sole and direct cause” of his death when awarding his widow death benefits.
Walls-Kaufman was later pardoned after being sentenced to two months in jail.
Smith’s widow was awarded $500,000 in damages in the civil suit. Taranto was dropped from the lawsuit during his lengthy criminal trial.
While Taranto has been ordered to stay away from Washington, D.C., and get mental health treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, Taranto had done neither, according to statements on livestreams on his Rumble account in early December and an interview with another channel.
His January court filings did include mention of one virtual visit with a mental health provider.
Taranto has livestreamed at least 200 times since his release from the D.C. Metropolitan Jail using the same Rumble account he had previously used to post videos of himself inside the U.S. Capitol building during the Jan. 6 riot.
Rumble is a video platform like YouTube, favored by right-wing commentators due to its perceived lack of moderation. Several of Taranto’s videos have racial slurs in the titles.
Many of the videos show Taranto clearly walking around D.C., including outside federal buildings.
If he violates these new probation conditions Taranto could face a variety of consequences, including being put back in jail or having his probation extended.
