Case against Fincastle man charged in connection with Jan. 6 Capitol riot set for trial - WDBJ

FINCASTLE, Va. (WDBJ) - A Fincastle man charged in connection with the January 6th Capitol attack is ready to proceed to trial.

Markus Maly is being prosecuted alongside three other defendants: Peter Schwartz, Jeffrey Brown and Shelly Stallings. All four appeared in court virtually Monday afternoon to check on the status of the proceedings.

According to court documents, the FBI claims Maly can be seen handing a pepper spray canister to at least one of those defendants in CCTV footage from the Capitol.

Prosecutors say they are considering extending plea agreements in this case.

Maly faces eight charges in connection with the case. He was arrested in January, more than a year after the riot. Maly was temporarily jailed, with prosecutors citing his previous criminal history.

“He has convictions in Virginia, Florida, and California and has a history of probation violations and failures to appear,” prosecutors wrote.

The government also pulled pieces of interviews the FBI conducted with Maly since his arrest.

“Upon his arrest, Maly admitted that he went to the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He said that he saw people being gassed while he was there. He said he wore a white “Trump” cowboy hat—that he no longer has—on January 6. When shown Image 3 from the Statement of Facts, he stated “that resembles me if it’s not me,” prosecutors wrote.

His attorney, Roanoke Assistant Federal Public Defender Benjamin Schiffelbein, rebutted in his own documents, making the case that the court should grant Maly bond as he was needed to support his family.

“He has a steady job, and though he has a lengthy criminal record, most of it is old and dates to a time when he abused prescription opioids and other drugs,” says the document submitted by Schiffelbein. “Since moving to Virginia from Florida and stopping the use of illegal drugs, he has had minimal, incidental contact with the law related solely to driving offenses.”

In March, he was released and ordered to house arrest with GPS monitoring, as well as instructions to not access devices that would allow him to communicate through encrypted or non-encrypted applications.

Maly and the other defendants will go before a judge again in June and are set for trial in November.

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