The 19-year-old son of US Capitol riot defendant Guy Refitt testified before a Washington jury on Thursday for more than three hours, relieved of the painful family split in the courtroom that led to the historic first trial related to Jan.
Jackson Refitt became a key witness for prosecutors as he reported his father's far-right political extremism to the FBI on Christmas Eve. He then complied with law enforcement, recording audio of the family feud and forwarding offensive text messages from his father. Guy Refitt after the FBI attends then-President Donald Trump's rally in Washington on January 6, 2021, prior to the Capitol breach.
"I don't regret it, but it's a lot," said Jackson Refitt. "I really don't have words to describe it. I think it's the best situation," he said at the end of his testimony.
Before the 2016 election, Jackson Refitt said, he and his father were very close. But Guy Refit "became a far-right extremist," and his son became increasingly insane.
On Thursday, the long-haired young man spoke almost in a whisper at times, talking about his fears and his father's politics. He corroborated text messages discussing his parents, his sisters, and the Capitol riot himself, and he listened to audio clips of the family banquet, which then turned into a discussion on the illegality of guns to be carried on federal property.
"You carried a weapon to the federal base," Jackson Refitt said to his father.
"Okay... what part of it is breaking the law?" Guy Refit responded by saying that written laws are not always correct. "We made a point ... you would know your father was there when a great historical event happened in this country."
Jackson Refitt testified that he recorded his father because "I thought no one would believe me," and that he met an FBI agent at a local restaurant because "I wanted to talk to someone," he said. .
Evidence is being presented to the jury in an attempt to prove that Guy Refitt was in D.C., that he participated in the Capitol riot while carrying a weapon, and that he threatened his children with silence afterward. Guy Refitt's younger daughter, Peyton — who was called "Peter Pats" in the family's text series — is set to testify near the end of the trial.
Reffitt is on trial on five charges. He is accused of carrying a gun to the Capitol, interfering with two police officers outside the building, and threatening his children when he returned home. Refit has pleaded not guilty.
Home of a texas family
When his son first took the stand, Guy Refitt's face turned red and he began to cry. Nicole Refitt looked up from the gallery and at one point pointed to her husband, as she also held back feelings, noted observers in the courtroom.
With Jackson Refitt finished his testimony for prosecutors, family members left the courtroom separately, his father on his way back to prison and his mother making out with other family members who were watching the trial. .
"Today was a really tough day. I don't feel like talking," Nicole Refitt told media outlets outside the courthouse.
Jackson Refitt begins his testimony by presenting a portrait of what appears to be a typical family. Children and parents often joked with each other over their group lesson series and in person.
But Jackson Refitt clarified that he disagreed with his father's far-right political beliefs, explaining that his father wore a Trump hat almost every day and carried his Smith & Wesson handgun in a holster "pretty much all the time". Were. The son said that if it was not on his hip, it would have been on his nightstand.
Prosecutors are trying to prove that during the rebellion Guy Refitt drove a Smith & Wesson .40 to Capitol grounds, where he was in front of a crowd in a brawl with police as the crowd moved on.
“This is my father’s handgun on the nightstand,” said Jackson Refitt, without emotion, as the courtroom was shown a picture of the nightstand.
The jury was also shown photographs of the gun secured in a closet adjacent to the master bedroom, and described by Jackson Refitt as his father's automatic rifle. The photos also showed the jury the Guy Refitt's white pickup, as was Nicole Refitt's blue Chevrolet Equinox. Both had stickers with stars and gunpowder symbols of the Three Centuries, a right-wing anti-government group active in Guy Refit and whose meetings before and after January 6 play a part in the prosecutors' case.
Son's first tip to the FBI
Jackson Refitt described Under Oath how he had decided to report his father to the FBI for his political extremism.
The decision came in the wake of Jackson Refitt's political disagreements after the election in 2020 and a banter over text with his father.
Guy Refitt tells his son to "hold my beer" to see what he'll do — and "what comes next is about torture."
Guy Refitt wrote to his son, "The whole law has committed an unimaginable act upon our people." "We have had enough."
Jackson Refitt said that his father's talk drove him "crazy" and increased his anxiety.
“Looking at these messages and reading them, my paranoia really flew, so I decided to lay some of the worry on my shoulders and give the FBI a tip,” he told the jury.
At home alone in his bedroom, he googled the FBI tip line.
The son told the jury, "Googling my father to report. It's too weird to say it out loud."
In the two days after January 6, Guy Refitt bragged to his family over text messages about his participation in the Capitol riots while he was traveling home. He wrote to his family about where he was in the video of the attack, what he was wearing and how pepper balls were sprinkled on him, his son testified. Prosecutors showed the jury a series of text messages.
Jackson Refitt said he took screenshots of some of the messages and sent them to the FBI after January 6.
Guy Refitt wrote to his children and wife on January 8, "Shooted several times with clay balls and sprayed heavily with pepper. We took the capital of the United States. We are the people's republic."
He also sent the family a clip of Laura Ingraham's show on Fox, where she is featured in the video of the attack. "This is my beginning in blue," the father later wrote, "climbing the stairs in a Kuwaiti blue coat."
Earlier in the trial, the jury watched Capitol surveillance video of a man in body armor and a blue jacket on a staircase on the Capitol's Upper West Terrace, who was told by police to back down and spray. chemical irritant. The massive pro-Trump crowd was then able to overpower police and proceed to the Capitol complex.
"A hero," Jackson Refitt told his father in the text series after the attack.
But the son explained at the witness stand, "It was sarcasm."
He spoke more calmly about Capitol riot participants being sought by law enforcement from his father over text message in January.
"I'm trying to make him realize how bad the situation is," the son testified in the courtroom to his father.
After Guy Refitt returned to Texas, his son recorded the family's conversation about the Capitol riot on his cell phone.
On audio clips narrated by the jury, the family occasionally laughed about the father's rebuke in a national news story. Guy Refit bragged about being caught on video in a clip that aired on the news. But it was very brief, and his wife and children told him about it.
"We must be having a sad moment because Dad has a one-second video of the storm over the Capitol," his wife joked in the recording.
Later, however, Guy Refit became increasingly concerned that he would be arrested for participating in the attack. He became so concerned, his son said, that he had warned Jackson Refitt and his younger sister that if they reported it to the FBI they would be traitors, and that "the traitors would be shot."
"I looked at my sister and she looked at me astonished, almost confused," Jackson told the jury. "I was very grossed out" and "afraid, not only of myself but of my sister."
That afternoon, Jackson said, he went to a local high school and parked for 15 minutes so his family thought he was picking up friends. Then he met an FBI agent at a restaurant and told the agent "everything".
He left the family home after his father's arrest in January 2021 and has not had any contact with him since then. Shortly after his arrest, Jackson Refitt did major national TV interviews about turning into his father.