Nov 10, 2021 3 min read

A trial date has been set for the Fayette County man accused of showering multiple police officers in pepper spray and attacking one officer with a chair during the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

The trial for Peter Schwartz is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 1 at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., on charges that he attacked several police officers while a riotous mob attempted to thwart Congress from certifying the presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who will preside over the trial, set the date and other pre-trial proceedings Monday.

Schwartz, who is originally from Kentucky, was living and working in Uniontown at the time when federal investigators said he traveled with his wife, Shelley, to join a rally in support of former president Donald Trump. They eventually marched to the Capitol, where Schwartz is accused of finding large canisters of pepper spray and using it on DC Metropolitan police officers, according to court documents. Shelley Schwartz has not been charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol.

However, a California man was indicted last month as a co-defendant with Schwartz. Investigators said Jeffrey Scott Brown of Irvine also used pepper spray on police officers who were protecting an entryway as the mob tried to enter the building. The superseding 10-count indictment made public Oct. 27 names Schwartz and Brown as co-defendants, although it’s not clear in court documents if they knew each other before Jan. 6. Brown is also scheduled to go to trial in February.

Schwartz, 47, has been jailed since FBI agents arrested him at his Cleveland Avenue apartment in Uniontown on Feb. 4. He has been pushing to go to trial after several delays in his case.

Mehta denied his request for bond during a June 24 hearing, and Schwartz soon fired his attorneys, Michael Lawlor and Nicholas Madiou, about a month later. He then hired Los Angeles-based lawyer John Pierce, who was later hospitalized with serious health problems and unable to communicate with Schwartz or federal prosecutors for more than a week. An associate at Pierce’s law firm, Ryan Marshall, represented Schwartz at some proceedings, but prosecutors took exception when they learned he does not have his law license because he is still facing charges in a government corruption case in Fayette County.

During a Sept. 2 hearing before Mehta to discuss the situation with Pierce, who has since recovered and returned to the case, Schwartz said he wanted to proceed to trial as quickly as possible.

“I want my speedy trial rights,” he said during that hearing. “I wanted that from Day One.”

Schwartz is being held without bond in a jail in Washington, D.C.