WASHINGTON — A D.C. man accused of repeatedly assaulting police with a pole on Jan. 6 will appear before a federal judge next week to enter a guilty plea.
Mark Ponder, of Northwest D.C., was indicted last March on 12 counts, including felony counts of civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting police with a dangerous weapon. He rejected a plea offer from the government last July and was scheduled to begin a jury trial on April 25. Instead, according to a filing Thursday in D.C. District Court, Ponder will appear before U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan next Friday to plead guilty.
Ponder, one of only a small number of D.C. residents charged in connection with the Capitol riot, was arrested by police during the assault on the Capitol. The criminal complaint against him included multiple still images from bodyworn camera footage appearing to show Ponder swinging a large metal pole at an officer, who defended himself with a riot shield.
Officers eventually subdued Ponder and placed him under arrest, but he was released when the officers were called to return to the front line for crowd control. According to charging documents, Ponder then left the area for a short time before returning to the Capitol. He left for good once tear gas was deployed.
Ponder has been held in custody since his re-arrest. A federal magistrate judge said Ponder had attacked police so aggressively it broke a stick he was using and had, during his arrest, voiced “deeply-held false beliefs that the sitting government is illegitimate.” Ponder also has a long criminal history dating back four decades. He was convicted in 2007 of robbing a taxi driver and a PNC bank and was sentenced to serve 37 months in prison. Prior to that, the judge noted, he was convicted of domestic assault.
It was not immediately clear which of the charges against him Ponder had agreed to plead guilty to. A Maryland man, David Alan Blair, facing similar charges for assaulting police with a lacrosse stick on Jan. 6 pleaded guilty last month to one felony count of civil disorder. Blair was expected to face a recommended range of 8-14 months in prison at sentencing in July.
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