The attorney for an Elliston man charged in the riots at the U.S. Capitol says he is being treated more harshly than participants in other cases, such as protests of police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.

Charges against Jeremey Daniel Groseclose should be dismissed because he is the victim of selective enforcement, his attorney argues.

Groseclose faces felony charges of participating in a civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding even though he did not injure anyone or damage property in the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising of Donald Trump supporters, defense attorney Carmen Hernandez wrote in a motion filed late Friday in Washington, D.C.’s federal court.

By comparison, no such charges were placed against protesters who “have espoused progressive political views,” Hernandez wrote, citing the 2020 anti-police demonstrations at a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, and other incidents of rioting, vandalism and looting.

“Such disparate treatment amounts to selective prosecution and enforcement on the basis of the content of Mr. Groseclose’s speech in violation of his First Amendment rights,” the motion states in asking U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper to dismiss the charges.

Groseclose is scheduled for trial in November on the two felony charges and four misdemeanor offenses.

Court records include photographs of Groseclose wearing a gas mask and joining a horde of rioters — many of them wearing pro-Trump apparel and waving signs supporting his claims of a stolen election – that forced their way into the Capitol. Lawmakers who were meeting to certify President Joe Biden’s victory at the polls in November 2020 fled for their safety before order was eventually restored.

At one point during the approximately two hours Groseclose spent in the building, authorities say he helped a group of insurgents in preventing police from closing a roll-up door in the Crypt, a circular room directly below the Rotunda, as the mob advanced.

“I saw GROSECLOSE help another subject place a trash can under the closing door,” an FBI special agent wrote in court records.

Groseclose, who was 38 at the time of his arrest in February 2021, was allowed to remain free on bond in his Montgomery County home. He is one of more than 1,000 defendants from across the country charged in what prosecutors have called a severe threat to democracy.

Hernandez wrote in her motion that while prosecutors are free to exercise substantial discretion in deciding what charges to bring, they cannot base their decisions solely on a defendant’s political views, which are protected by free-speech rights.

Cooper, who presided over the cases of two former Rocky Mount police officers charged with participating in the Jan. 6 uprising, discounted a similar argument made in that case.

Thomas “T.J.” Robertson had argued that his words on social media — expressing displeasure over the results of the presidential election and supporting Trump’s claims of voter fraud — were being improperly used to link him to the insurrection on Capitol Hill.

But in a March 2022 opinion, Cooper wrote that “if Robertson had expressed his view only through social media, he almost certainly would not be here. But he also allegedly took action – entering the Capitol without lawful authority in an alleged attempt to impede the Electoral College vote certification.” A jury later convicted Robertson, who is serving a prison sentence of seven years and three months.

In her motion, Hernandez cited an opinion issued earlier this month by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that dealt more directly with the issue of selective enforcement.

That case involved thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters who flooded the streets of the nation’s capital to protest the killing of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.

Over several weeks, the crowds covered streets, sidewalks and storefronts with paint and chalk messages calling for racial justice. “The markings were ubiquitous and in open violation of the District’s defacement ordinance, yet none of the protesters were arrested,” the court wrote in its Aug. 15 opinion.

During the same summer, Washington D.C. police arrested two anti-abortion advocates who chalked ‘Black Pre-Born Lives Matter’ on a public sidewalk in a smaller protest.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court revived part of a lawsuit in which the anti-abortion protesters claimed that police engaged in selective enforcement by charging them — but not the racial justice demonstrators.

“The First Amendment prohibits discrimination on the basis of viewpoint,” the court ruled.

In the Portland case involving racial justice protests, the government did charge some demonstrators with assaulting police, Hernandez wrote in her motion. Many of the cases were dismissed, she said, and in others the government recommended probation.

“These dismissals and resolutions have occurred under the same Department of Justice that continues to prosecute Mr. Groseclose for his non-violent conduct,” Hernandez wrote.

“At a minimum, the court should require the government to explain why it has targeted Mr. Groseclose with two felony charges while allowing thousands of other demonstrators to face non-felony charges.”