Julian Khater, a Pennsylvania business owner arrested in March for his participation in the January insurrection, has submitted a memorandum in an effort to be released on bond before his trial.
His legal team is requesting a bond of $15 million, with $1.5 million secured by properties the Khater family owns. Additionally, 16 family members say they will be guarantors in the agreement, that Khater would be under supervised house arrest, and that his passports would be confiscated.
The news was first disclosed by a BuzzFeed reporter.
Julian Khater, one of two men charged with conspiring to assault Officer Brian Sicknick at the Capitol using a chemical spray (they are not charged in Sicknick’s death), has asked to be released from jail pending trial https://t.co/MFruW2EicO
Previously: https://t.co/Q5puvLp7vC pic.twitter.com/9m4gtLj9N7
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) April 20, 2021
“It is hard not to think of the events that unfolded on January 6th and not have a visceral reaction—particularly, as rioters entered the Capitol Building by breaking windows and ramming open doors,” the memorandum says.
“But Julian Khater is not one of them,” it continues. “He never entered the Capitol Building, never sought to threaten members of Congress, and never intended to forcibly interfere with the peaceful transfer of power.”
Khater, the former co-owner and manager of Chapel Hill’s Frutta Bowls, was arrested after video showed him using a bear spray within eight feet of three Capitol police officers, including Officer Brian Sicknick, who died the next day. Khater and another man, George Pierre Tanios of Morgantown, West Virginia, were charged with conspiring to injure law enforcement officers, multiple counts of assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon, and more.
The 28-page memorandum was released the day after Sicknick was found to have died of natural causes, due to two strokes he had following the riots. Capitol Police originally said he died from injuries, but no evidence of this was found. The department released a statement after the autopsy report, saying it “does not change the fact Officer Sicknick died in the line of duty.”
The memorandum says the criminal complaint against Khater “raises questions regarding the accusations,” based on the potential eight feet distance between Khater and the law enforcement officers, the wind that day, the fact that he sprayed toward the officers’ general direction instead of directly at them, whether or not he’s actually using that can of bear spray, or even holding a can of bear spray in the first place. They say the spray could be from the officers themselves. It also includes 18 letters, mostly from family, attesting to Khater’s “upstanding history and characteristics.”
The memorandum points out that other people at the insurrection, ones with Proud Boy tattoos and people who threw things at officers, were let out on unsecured bonds. Additionally, his family is using GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding website known for hosting a fundraiser page in support of Kyle Rittenhouse, to raise money for his legal fees.
“Because of his participation in the events of January 6th, he has been defamed by the media, harrassed [sic] by agitators, and deemed by many to be guilty until proven innocent,” Khater’s father, Elie, writes in the description.
The mediation has not been stayed or rejected by the courts, but Sicknick’s autopsy will likely keep him from any homicide charges.
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