Two members of the National Guard in Virginia and Wisconsin are being removed from the service after pleading guilty to charges relating to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol protest and riot, Military.com reports.
Virginia National Guard member Jacob Fracker, and Pfc. Abram Markofski from the Wisconsin National Guard, are being removed from their respective state services after pleading guilty to charges taking place while they attended the Jan. 6, 2021, protest and riot at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., sources told Military.com.
According to the report, Markofski was an infantryman in Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry Regimen, based in River Falls, Wisconsin, and has continued training and getting paid by the state while the charges from Jan. 6 went through the courts.
He pleaded guilty to one of four charges against him as part of a plea deal with prosecutors and was sentenced in December 2021 to two years probation and a $1,500 fine, according to the report.
The specific charges against him were not cited in the report.
Fracker, who was a Rocky Mount, Virginia, police officer in addition to being a member of the Virginia National Guard's 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, pleaded guilty in March to his role in storming the Capitol with others Jan. 6, 2021, and is awaiting sentencing, according to a separate report.
How and when Fracker will be discharged from the service is not yet known, but he was fired from his job on the police force after he was charged in the Jan. 6 protest and riot, the report said.
"Now that his civilian charges have been adjudicated, the process has started for an administrative separation from the Virginia Army National Guard," Alfred Puryear, a spokesperson for the Virginia Guard, told Military.com in an emailed statement about Fracker’s case.
Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed by Capitol Police, while Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick suffered a stroke and died the next day.
According to the report, Fracker told the court he wanted to see the results of the 2020 election thrown out and former President Donald Trump declared the winner.
"I felt like we had, maybe, been heard by whoever it was we needed to be heard by – maybe, possibly, have the election results overturned," Fracker testified in court, according to NBC News.
According to the NBC News report, more than 775 individuals have been charged in connection with the event, and more than 225 have already pleaded guilty to charges from that day.
One defendant, Matthew Martin, was acquitted on his charges earlier this month, and hundreds of other cases are still in the courts, the report said.
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