Grand jury indicts man accused of pepper spraying police during Jan. 6 insurrection
A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., this week indicted a man from Uniontown after he was accused of pepper spraying officers during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The grand jury returned the 14-count indictment Wednesday against Peter Schwartz after he was arrested at his apartment in Uniontown on Feb. 4 in connection with the assault on Congress.
Authorities said Schwartz, a convicted felon from Kentucky who had been living in Fayette County since last fall, drove to Washington, D.C., with his wife and attended a rally in support of former president Donald Trump.
The couple later walked to the Capitol with a mob of Trump supporters who attempted to disrupt the certification of Electoral College results electing Joe Biden as president.
Federal investigators said Schwartz used police-issued pepper spray on at least two police officers protecting lawmakers and wielded a club during the riot. Schwartz also attempted to enter the Capitol, but left before he and his wife got stuck in a doorway, according to testimony at a Feb. 11 evidentiary hearing in Pittsburgh. His wife, Shelley, has not been charged in connection with the insurrection.
Peter Schwartz faces charges that include assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon; civil disorder; aiding and abetting; obstruction of an official proceeding; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; impeding ingress and egress in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; impeding passage through the Capitol grounds or buildings; and acts of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.
Schwartz is being held without bond and was expected to be transferred to a prison in the Washington area as his case proceeded in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.