A forklift operator formerly living in Uniontown with her welder husband, both of whom were convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and attacking police, is headed to federal prison for two years.
Shelly Stallings, who is originally from Kentucky and has since moved back there, was sentenced to that term on Friday in Washington, D.C.
Her estranged husband, Peter Schwartz, is awaiting sentencing for his own violent actions that day.
Stallings, who had also been a welder like her husband before switching jobs last year, pleaded guilty last summer to multiple counts of civil disorder and attacking police. Her husband, already a felon, elected to go to trial and was convicted.
The couple drove to Washington on Jan. 6 to attend then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally in support of his repeated lies that he won the election, which he continues to spout even while he remains under investigation in several jurisdictions.
The pair then marched to the Capitol with the throng. Schwartz threw a metal folding chair at police, hitting several. He then grabbed a bag filled with large canisters of pepper spray and used them to spray officers. Those actions were recorded on video, and Stallings also gave a statement to the FBI about what happened.
Stallings said her husband also hit an officer in the head with a baton that she called a “tire thumper.” There’s no video of that, the government said, but Schwartz is seen holding a baton.
At one point in the melee, Schwartz handed Stallings a can of pepper spray, which she used to spray at cops as seen on video.
After that, Stallings walked toward the lower west terrace tunnel with Schwartz and another man, Jeffrey Brown. Stallings entered the tunnel and made her way to the front of the line of rioters, where she and others pushed against the police line guarding the doors.
Stallings, Schwartz, Brown and another man then coordinated to spray an “orange substance” at officers, prosecutors said.
Stallings initially lied to the FBI when they came to arrest her husband but later contacted agents to say she was going to divorce Schwartz and wanted to tell the truth.
This time she admitted she had lied in her first interview, including her statement about two guns agents found in the house. She initially said they were hers but now admitted that they belonged to Schwartz. As a convicted felon, he can’t have guns under federal law.
She also said she had lied about Schwartz having sprayed the officers in response to being sprayed. The police did not spray her husband first; he was the aggressor.
She said she had lied because she was afraid of him and that he had beaten her two days before the FBI arrested him. She also said he had threatened harm to anyone who turned him in to the FBI. She said he had sent as many as 30 messages from jail threatening to kill her if she cooperated.
A month after the second interview, she turned over her laptop and desk computer to the FBI. Agents didn’t find any threatening messages. They later confronted her with video of her spraying cops and she admitted it.
The government asked for 51 months in prison, or more than four years.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Cindy Cho said Stallings willingly participated in an unprecedented attack on the seat of U.S. government.
“Stallings’ actions on Jan. 6 show an absolute disregard for the rule of law coupled with a willingness to engage in violence,” she said. “After the riot, she minimized and lied to FBI agents about what happened.”
Stallings’ Kentucky lawyer, Scott Wendelsdorf, asked for leniency, saying her husband coerced her into going to the rally and she did because she was afraid of him.
“Schwartz regularly abused Stallings, and his threats were credible,” he said. “He was and remains a controlling and volatile individual with a long history of violent crime.”
He said she should be punished for what she did but asked for a year of home detention instead of prison.
“Shelly can be redeemed,” he said. “She is worthy of redemption.”
The judge decided on a sentence in the middle, with two years behind bars. He also gave her three years of probation.
Schwartz is set to be sentenced next month.
More than 1,000 people have now been arrested in connection to the insurrection, and the FBI continues to track down more. Just last week, agents arrested a Pennsylvania man and an Illinois man for their actions that day.
About two dozen people from Western Pennsylvania are among those charged, with most having now been convicted and some sent to prison.
Torsten covers the courts for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Reach him at jtorsteno@gmail.com.
