A southwest suburban man pleaded guilty Monday to dousing police with hornet spray and used a baton to break out windows during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
William Lewis, 57, of Burbank, entered his plea to a count of assaulting police officers during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington, D.C., court records show.
Preliminary sentencing guidelines call for 51-63 months in prison, according to Lewis’ plea agreement with prosecutors. Contreras is scheduled to sentence Lewis on Dec. 16.
Lewis’ lawyer, Blaire Dalton, had no comment Monday.
Lewis, who was arrested in November, is among nearly 50 Illinoisans to be charged in the Capitol breach, an ongoing investigation that has been described by prosecutors as the largest criminal investigation in the country’s history.
According to the charges, surveillance images showed Lewis, dressed in all black with a U.S. Army star logo and an American flag on his sleeves, in the middle of a violent mob fighting with police outside the Capitol.
Body camera footage from several Capitol police officers showed Lewis holding up a black and yellow canister of No-Pest Wasp and Hornet Killer and spraying the police line with it, the complaint alleged.
One officer who viewed the footage told the FBI he “remembers a white male wearing all black spraying something at him from a big canister,” and that the officer “experienced a burning sensation on his face and in his eyes as a result of being sprayed,” according to the complaint.
The footage then showed Lewis throwing the empty can toward officers, the complaint alleged.
Afterward, Lewis advanced to the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol building, where a stage was being constructed for the upcoming presidential inauguration, according to the complaint.
There, Lewis “used what appears to be a baton to strike and break at least three glass panes of a window located immediately to the right of the Lower West Terrace tunnel,” the complaint stated.
Lewis was allegedly identified in 2022 by two people who recognized him from an FBI page dedicated to trying to identify suspects in the Capitol attack.
More than 1,400 people have been charged as part of the investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack, including arrests in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
About 500 of those — including Lewis — have been charged with felony assault of law enforcement.
