Per a newly published report over at The Republic, Iced Earth guitarist Jon Schaffer has become quite evasive in being served notice of the District of Columbia suing him for his participation in the January 06th, 2021 Capitol Building riots. You can find a copy of that particular lawsuit in full here.
According to the report, “at least 25 separate attempts to serve Schaffer at seven different addresses across three different states” have yet to be met with success. The District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine filed civil suit against Schaffer and 30 others on December 14th, 2021 in Washington, DC, accusing the individuals and organizations (Proud Boys & Oath Keepers) of “conspiring to terrorize” the district in relation to their involvement on the actions that took place on January 06th of that year.
In turn, they look to have the parties found liable for the millions of dollars spent handling the situation via the police cost, resulting medical bills and more. While Schaffer himself was initially held in custody after turning himself in on January 17th of 2021, he was granted a conditional release in April of last year, as part of a plea deal.
That deal is part of a cooperation agreement, which is contingent on him providing knowledge of the actions that took place that day and the potential involvement of the Oath Keepers organization, with which he has been alleged to have been affiliated with. Per his guilty plea via that deal, Schaffer acknowledged that he was a “a founding, lifetime member of the Oath Keepers.”
To initiate that agreement, Schaffer entered guilty pleas to the charges of obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress; and trespassing on restricted grounds of the Capitol while armed with a deadly or dangerous weapon. The dangerous weapon in question was a cannister of bear spray. Several other charges were dropped as a result of the deal.
Despite stakeouts and continued efforts to serve Schaffer at a mobile home in Auburndale, FL believed to be his current residence, process servers have yet to be successful in serving Schaffer. Requests to serve him by alternative means, including email and press publication, were denied by a judge. Thus far requests for cooperation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, who are overseeing Schaffer‘s criminal action case, have yet to be granted.
Furthermore, as of this past Friday, September 30th it would appear that the civil action suit filed by Racine and the District of Columbia has been temporarily halted by order of the courts until the criminal trial against Oath keepers founder Stewart Rhodes is concluded. You can read more on the exhaustive efforts having been made to serve Schaffer over at The Republic.
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