Former Washington County couple plead guilty to Capitol riot charges

A former Washington County couple who have since moved to North Carolina pleaded guilty on Monday to felony charges stemming from their participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Dale Jeremiah Shalvey, 38, now of Conover, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers and obstruction of an official proceeding in federal court in Washington, D.C.

His wife, Tara Aileen Stottlemyer, 37, pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding.

They will be sentenced on Jan. 20 by U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly. Another woman, Katharine Hallock Morrison, 38, of Dansville, New York, who traveled with them to Washington, D.C., also pleaded guilty to obstruction.

According to federal investigators, the three traveled to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. That afternoon, at about 2:09 p.m., Shalvey walked to a bike rack on the West Front of the Capitol being used as a barricade and assaulted an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department by throwing something at them.

About 10 minutes later, all three defendants entered the Capitol building through the Senate wing door and moved throughout, including in the crypt, the House’s suite, the rotunda and Senate chamber.

While inside the Senate chamber, the government said, Shalvey and Morrison looked through senators’ desks, and all three defendants took pictures of documents they found there.

Shalvey also took a letter written by Sen. Mitt Romney to Vice President Mike Pence from a senator’s desk and destroyed it after leaving the Capitol.

They left the building about 3:05 p.m.

Shalvey previously lived in Washington County and operated a woodworking business there.

He and Stottlemyer now earn their livelihoods on a farm in North Carolina. According to motion filed in the case, they raise chickens, ducks and turkeys on a regenerative farm.