A Gwinnett County land surveyor will spend a year on probation, including two months house arrest, as punishment for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, following a teleconferenced sentencing hearing Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
John David Ross Gould, 46 of Duluth, spent 40 minutes inside the Capitol during the riot, making it as far as the hallway outside House chamber where a mob attempted to force its way in as members of Congress were being evacuated. While Gould’s lawyer attempted to portray him as a hapless victim of mob mentality, federal prosecutors said he knew what he was doing.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Collyer described the riot by supporters of former President Donald Trump as a stain on the history of the country. While Gould did not assault police or vandalize the Capitol, he formed part of the “critical mass” that made the riot possible.
“Each individual participant contributed to the international embarrassment that was Jan. 6,” Collyer told U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras.
Gould pleaded guilty in December to a misdemeanor charge of illegally demonstrating inside the Capitol as part of a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, which has charged more than 1,000 people in its wide-ranging investigation. More than two years after the riot, about half of the defendants have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges ranging from trespassing to assaulting police and seditious conspiracy.
Of the 23 people with Georgia ties charged in the Jan. 6 investigation, 20 have either pleaded guilty or have been found guilty at trial.
In his sentencing, Gould attempted to distance himself from the violence and disorder of that day.
“I didn’t get anything that I expected out of going to Washington, DC,” he said. “I don’t agree with anything that happened that day.”
Gould went to Washington with friend Jonathan David Laurens, also of Duluth, who received an identical sentence in a hearing last June. The pair were among the first to enter the building when rioters broke open an exterior door on the Senate wing.
According to court records, Gould made his way through the Capitol to the door of the House before turning down the hall. He entered the Rayburn Reception Room where he snapped a selfie in the ornate mirror that he then texted to Laurens.
“Can you see me in the mirror?” he wrote.
Credit: U.S. Department of Justice
Credit: U.S. Department of Justice
In a brief submitted before sentencing, Gould’s attorney, Peter Cooper, painted his client as an unwitting accomplice to the riot who had fallen victim to Trump’s message that he was cheated out of the White House, which was amplified by right-wing media. That message of political grievance was an “incredibly powerful narcotic,” he wrote.
“There is no question that Mr. Gould carries a lot of remorse for what happened that day,” Cooper told the judge during the hearing.
In the state’s brief, Collyer wrote that Gould knew what he was doing when he entered the Capitol.
“As Gould approached the door, he would have observed the windows were broken and an alarm would have been audible. After entering, he observed people ramming doors and being antagonistic,” Collyer wrote. “Still, he proceeded further into the building.”
In interviews with the FBI, Gould downplayed his involvement, even claiming police allowed rioters to enter the Capitol, but surveillance video showed Gould among the crowd pushing past a line of police attempting to stop rioters from entering.
“Mr. Gould knows, in retrospect, that police were not letting people in,” Cooper said.
Along with probation, Contreras sentenced Gould to 60 hours of community service and a $500 fine. The judge noted that a larger fine was not feasible. While Gould is employed, “his income is modest and expenses are many,” the judge said.
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