Shelbyville man gets five years for Capitol insurrection

An Indiana man who assaulted officers while storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was sentenced to five years in prison on Friday. Mark Andrew Mazza, 57, pled guilty in June to assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon and carrying a pistol without a license.

Mazza travelled from Shelbyville to Washington D.C. carrying a Taurus revolver loaded with three shotgun shells and two hollow point bullets and a loaded .40 semi-automatic pistol. 

Mazza joined other insurrectionists in pushing through at least 20 officers protecting a tunnel entrance to the Capitol Building, holding open a set of doors to allow rioters to attack police with batons, flag poles and stolen riot shields. 

Mazza seized a baton from an officer’s hand and used it to strike him. “This is our (expletive) house,” he reportedly yelled. “We own this house.”

Police managed to force the rioters out of the tunnel, although Mazza stayed at the Capitol until police dispersed the crowd with flash bang grenades.

Following the insurrection, Mazza filed a false report with Shelbyville Police Department, claiming to have lost his gun at a casino in Ohio at the time of the attack.

A joint investigation by U.S. Capitol Police and the FBI’s Indianapolis Field Office revealed that cell tower records placed Mazza in D.C. at the time of the riot, and a search of his Twitter showed videos and selfies he had taken personally during the attack. Tweets from the account investigators identified also called for money for a border wall, shared false information about voter fraud and expressed that Samuel L Jackson and Kanye West “should start looking for houses in Africa.”

pic.twitter.com/GEG0ri6dwm

— mark mazza (@MarkNunzios64) January 7, 2021

Agents with the Capitol Police interviewed Mazza on the front porch of his Shelbyville home on March 25. The Indiana man told the officers that he travelled to D.C. to attend former-president Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally. Officers arrested Mazza at his home on Nov. 17, 2021. When Mazza’s 60-month sentence is completed, he’ll be placed on three years supervised released and be made to pay $2,150 in restitution.