‘It’s literally cost me everything.’ Missouri man gets jail time in Capitol riot case

He called it the “Cruzing to Victory Tour 2023.”

A northwest Missouri man convicted for his role in the Capitol riot took to the highways last week, riding his motorcycle to Washington, D.C., for his sentencing on Tuesday.

Lloyd Casimiro Cruz Jr., of Polo — about 50 miles northeast of Kansas City — saw the event as a way to raise funds for his legal bills and highlight what he says are the bogus cases brought against him and other “J6ers” charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.

The Justice Department, however, saw it as a failure to take responsibility for his actions and one of multiple reasons why he should be sentenced to a year in jail.

On Tuesday morning in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Reggie B. Walton handed down a sentence of 45 days’ incarceration followed by one year of supervised release and $500 restitution for the nearly $2.9 million in damages the government said resulted from the attack.

Cruz, 40, was facing up to 18 months’ incarceration, restitution and a $5,000 fine. The government requested 12 months’ incarceration, one year of supervised release, 60 hours of community service, and $500 restitution.

The stay-at-home father of four had declined to accept a plea deal and instead agreed to a Jan. 13 bench trial before the judge, waiving his right to a trial in front of a jury. He was found guilty of one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building and one count of entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds. Both charges are misdemeanors.

Prior to his conviction, Cruz filed a motion to dismiss his case, saying the charges were “undeniably unconstitutional” and that he was merely exercising his First Amendment rights when he entered the Capitol. In another motion, Cruz argued that the evidence obtained from the search of cellular location data that showed he was in the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack should be suppressed and the case dismissed because it originated “with a massive violation of the Fourth Amendment.”

The judge denied both motions.

Cruz, the first Missouri Capitol riot defendant to go to trial, created a website about his case and a GiveSendGo site to raise money that he said would help pay for his lawyer and other court expenses. Anything left over, he said, would be given to other Jan. 6 defendants for their legal costs.

“Please help with anything you can I am looking at 2 years for only walking around the Capitol,” he wrote on the fundraising site. “There were no signs nor no one saying I couldn’t be in there.”

As of Tuesday morning, he’d received $9,995 of the $35,000 requested.

“Thank you Patriot brother to you and your family,” wrote Bryan Nicklow, who donated $200 last week. “Godspeed as you embark on your journey on behalf of yourself and all J6ers and freedom loving Americans. I am praying for your safety and success.”

Cruz’s case has attracted the attention of his state representative, Mazzie Boyd, a Republican from Hamilton. His website features photos of Boyd posing with him and his family around the motorcycle.

In an April 12 letter “To the Great People of Missouri,” Boyd — whose bio says she has worked in the Trump White House and in the congressional office of Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — wrote that “it is disheartening to see the United States Judicial system being perverted.”

“Not only has it been used as a political tool against President Donald Trump, but also against my Constituent Lloyd Cruz,” she wrote.

She called Cruz “a political prisoner,” adding that “the only reason he is being charged is because of his support for President Trump.”

Cruz left Kansas City on Wednesday and live streamed updates on Rumble, an online video-sharing site. He told supporters that he has paid a high price for his actions.

“I went to D.C. to support President Trump and because I thought that if it was his last time, then at least I got to see him one last time,” he said on his stream Saturday night. “And from there, it was spur-of-the-moment.” He said he walked into the Capitol on Jan. 6, walked around briefly, then left.

“Never said a word, never touched anything,” he said. “For walking around for less than seven minutes, it’s literally cost me everything. I’ve received hate mail … people I thought were close to me, they tossed me aside, too … my own family refused to help me out when I needed it.”

Prosecutors described Cruz’s Jan. 6 involvement in a sentencing memorandum filed last week.

Cruz drove with two others to Washington to attend the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rally, the document said. After the rally, it said, he walked to the Capitol, where he joined a mob of rioters that had gathered on the West Plaza.

“While there, he observed — and video-recorded — police officers deploying flash bangs and chemical spray to disperse the crowd of rioters.” Around 2:10 p.m., the document said, Cruz followed the protesters who had broken through police lines.

“As Cruz ascended the stairs to the Upper West Terrace, Cruz exclaimed, ‘We broke down the gate. We broke through the gate’ and ‘I’m going inside!’” the sentencing document said.

The mob chanted “Whose House? Our House!” as Cruz approached the Senate Wing Door, and he saw rioters entering the Capitol through broken windows, the document said. Cruz entered the building through the Senate Wing Door at 2:14 p.m., one to two minutes after the initial breach at that location.

Cruz roamed the building with rioters as they chanted in the halls, then entered the Crypt about 2:17 p.m., according to the government’s filing. He left through the Senate Wing Door about 2:20 p.m., recording everything on his GoPro camera.

Cruz first denied going into the building, the government said, stating that he went on the Capitol grounds to help injured people. Later, he gave the FBI a thumb drive that contained photos and videos of his trip to D.C. He said that reviewing the videos “reminded him that he entered the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021.”

After being charged, the government said, Cruz created a Twitter account “in which he posted repeated solicitations for donations, and politically charged content, including conspiracy theories about what occurred on January 6.”

And in the days leading up to his trial, the sentencing document said, Cruz repeatedly posted statements minimizing his conduct.

Since his conviction, Cruz has continued to post statements downplaying the riot, the government said. Those posts, it said, “include conspiracy theories that Cruz would know from his own experience are false, such as that the rioters were ‘let in’ to the building by police and the Capitol riot was a ‘set up.’”

The government also mentioned the “Cruz for Victory” motorcycle ride to D.C. and Cruz’s “GiveSendGo” donation site, where “he makes blatantly false statements about his conduct on January 6, 2021,” the sentencing document said.

Those examples illustrate Cruz’s “complete failure to take responsibility for his actions,” the government said. It added that “his continued attempts to garner sympathy based on false statements about his own conduct, false statements about what happened at the Capitol on January 6, and statements portraying himself as a victim are repugnant.”

The government said Cruz also has a “significant criminal history” that includes four felony convictions from 2004 to 2007 for distribution of a controlled substance; possession of forged instruments; theft/receiving stolen property; and forgery of a check/commercial instrument. Some of the convictions, it said, resulted in prison sentences.

Cruz has failed to pay thousands in fines and costs ordered by the court in those cases, the government said, further demonstrating that he “has no respect for the law and specific deterrence for this defendant is greatly needed in this case.”

In Cruz’s own sentencing memorandum filed last week, his attorney, John Pierce, said Cruz cooperated with the investigation and voluntarily spoke to the FBI on four occasions. Cruz also handed over photos and videos taken when he was at the Capitol, Pierce said.

Pierce asked the court not to require Cruz to pay restitution for damage to the Capitol but to instead order a fine of $2,000 to $3,000.

“He did not stipulate to nor was he charged with damaging anything or hurting anyone,” Pierce wrote. “He would consider it a problem with his conscience and honor to be ordered to pay restitution when he never harmed anything or anyone.”

As for Cruz’s criminal history, Pierce wrote that other than his current case, “the record shows that the Defendant had clearly reformed and become a law-abiding citizen after some unfortunate early incidents.”

“This indicates that his early mistakes had a profound impact on him and caused him to turn away from them.”