WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court vacated all of the felony convictions Wednesday for a Georgia nurse accused of conspiring with her son to disrupt the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.
In a unanimous opinion, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated convictions on two counts of conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding for Lisa Eisenhart. Eisenhart, 60, was convicted following a stipulated bench trial last year alongside her son, Eric Gavelek Munchel, of Tennessee.
Eisenhart is the latest defendant whose conviction on the Enron-era obstruction statute has been vacated following a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year. In a 6-3 vote, the court’s majority found federal prosecutors had wrongly interpreted the statute as a catch-all for obstructive conduct, rather than as the narrow evidence-related provision Congress had intended.
Investigators said Eisenhart came to D.C. prepared for violence alongside her son, who earned the nickname “zip tie guy” after a photograph of him leaping over seats in the Senate Gallery holding law enforcement-style flex cuffs became one of the most iconic images of the riot. The duo was also accused of stashing weapons outside the Capitol before entering the building, although only Munchel was ever charged with weapons offenses.
A day after the riot, Eisenhart told a reporter from the London Times she was ready for further violence if necessary.
“I’d rather die as a 57-year-old woman than live under oppression,” she said. “I’d rather die and would rather fight.”
Eisenhart was sentenced in roughly two-and-a-half years in prison in September 2023, but a federal judge granted her request to stay that sentence a day before she was set to report in January amid ongoing appeals about the obstruction count.
With her only felony convictions now vacated, Eisenhart faces a significantly reduced guideline range. In his decision to stay her report date earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said he would likely sentence her to less than 10 months in prison without her felony convictions. Lamberth said Eisenhart, unlike her son, did not “become a symbol of the fear and uncertainty of January 6.”
Eisenhart will receive credit for approximately two-and-a-half months already spent in jail following her arrest in mid-January 2021. As of Thursday, no resentencing date had yet been set. It remained unclear how anticipated changes in the Justice Department’s posture toward Jan. 6 cases would affect future hearings following president-election Donald Trump’s inauguration next year.
The appeals court’s decision Wednesday did not affect Munchel, who is currently serving a nearly five-year prison sentence at the medium-security federal correctional institution in Yazoo City, Mississippi. Munchel’s appeal was severed from his mother’s due to additional felony charges for carrying a taser into the Capitol and remains ongoing.
While the D.C. Circuit is likely to eventually vacate Munchel’s convictions on the obstruction and conspiracy counts as well, it may ultimately do little to reduce his sentence. In the same order granting Eisenhart’s prison stay, Lamberth said her son’s sentence wasn’t likely to change even with a successful appeal on those counts and he would consider an upward variance if necessary.
“The Court cannot predict how it would resolve the parties’ dispute concerning the guidelines range, but it is highly unlikely the Court would reduce the 57-month sentence it imposed to less than 10 months,” Lamberth wrote. “A sentence closer to 57 months is much likelier. Even without § 1512(c)(2), Mr. Munchel committed multiple serious felonies. And his conduct on January 6, which included entering the Senate Chamber with a taser strapped to his waist and zip ties in-hand, with the intention of intimidating members of Congress into delivering the 2020 election to former President Trump, was outrageous.”
According to the Bureau of Prisons, Munchel is currently scheduled to be released from prison in August 2027.