Texas vineyard owner who tried to cut the Capitol's power on January 6 convicted on seven counts

According to WUSA9, a Texas man who tried to cut the power to the Capitol on January 6, 2021 has been convicted on seven charges.

"Christopher Ray Grider waived his right to a jury and instead sat for a bench trial before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. Grider was arrested last January and indicted on eight counts, including three felony counts of civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding and destruction of government property in excess of $1,000," reported Jordan Fischer.

Before the trial, Grider, who owns Kissing Tree Vineyards in Bruceville-Eddy, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts of entering a restricted building and unlawful picketing in the Capitol.

"According to a probable cause affidavit filed last year, Grider told a reporter during an interview with KWTX in Waco, Texas, that he’d been inside the Capitol and had been just feet away from U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt when she was fatally shot while climbing through a window of a door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby," said the report. "Grider was ultimately charged, and convicted, of assisting other rioters in damaging that door prior to Babbitt’s attempt to climb through."

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Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling also drew special attention to Grider's unsuccessful efforts to cut power at the Capitol through an exposed circuit box while rioters rampaged through the building.

More than 950 people have been charged, pleaded guilty, or were convicted in connection with the Capitol attack. Most were accused of relatively minor offenses like those Grider pleaded to, but some were charged with more serious crimes like assaulting law enforcement, or, in the case of leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, seditious conspiracy.