A Knoxville man who was sentenced to four months in prison and two years of supervised release, including the first four months in the form of home detention, “heave-ho’d’ his way to prison, according to the United State’s District Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia (USADC).
The sentence was levied against Michael Asbury, 44, of Knoxville after he pleaded guilty to one felony count of obstruction of justice during a civil disorder, an obscure federal charge that has been levied against many people who attended the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
He was also assessed a $2,000 fine.
Asbury was among a crowd in the Lower West Terrace Tunnel that encountered law enforcement in riot gear.
“Asbury moved into the Tunnel and leaned his full body weight against the rioter in front of him, with no one pushing him from behind initially,” the release says. “Additional rioters then joined behind him, pushing against him, and they collectively pushed together in a ‘heave-ho’ effort against the police line. After this first heave-ho effort, Asbury stood at the mouth of the Tunnel for approximately two minutes, with nothing preventing him from retreating. During that time, he handed a police riot shield to rioters outside the Tunnel as part of an effort to disarm the police.”
He further “heave-ho’d” a second and third time into the police line, this time surrounded by protestors behind him so he could not retreat. He also tossed a police riot shield to the crowd behind him, the release from USADC said. All of the exchanges took place in a 15-minute period.
When he was arrested in June 2023, Asbury was charged with obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder and misdemeanor offenses, including entering or remaining on restricted grounds without lawful authority to do so, disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building.
USADC refused to say whether Asbury took a plea deal.
The agency also refused to tell The Star how the court defined “heave-ho’ing” and whether anyone in U.S. history has ever been charged with obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder before January 6, 2021.
The Star left a voicemail for Asbury.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN-02), who represents Knoxville, declined to comment.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, appointed in 2012 by former President Barack Obama, oversaw the proceedings.
Contreras was assigned the case against General Michael Flynn (Ret.) and, in 2017, accepted Flynn’s guilty plea for allegedly lying to the FBI as part of the RussiaGate hoax. This has been widely documented, and Flynn himself now says that his guilty plea was elicited to avoid further prosecution of his son, who was his business partner in a consulting firm.
Contreras later recused himself from Flynn’s sentencing hearing when it became public information that FBI agent Peter Strzok, who investigated the RussiaGate hoax but was later dismissed by the FBI for texting fellow agent and lover Lisa Page about an “insurance policy” against a Trump presidency and for expressing support for Hillary Clinton, was a personal friend of Strzok.
The case was prosecuted by USADC and the Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.
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Peter D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Peter on Twitter/X.
