US seizes $90,000 from insurrectionist who sold footage of Ashli Babbitt's fatal shooting to news outlets
- John Earle Sullivan, charged with eight criminal counts, claimed to be at the Capitol riot as a documentarian.
- He recorded Ashli Babbitt's fatal shooting and sold it to news outlets, Reuters reported.
- US authorities have now seized around $90,000 - the amount he is believed to have made from selling the video.
US authorities have confiscated roughly $90,000 from a man who sold footage of a protester being fatally shot during the January 6 storming of the Capitol, according to court filings seen by Reuters.
John Earle Sullivan, a 26-year-old from Utah, recorded videos capturing the chaos of the Capitol riot, Reuters said. He claims to have been there as a "documentarian" but now faces a total of eight criminal counts relating to his involvement in the insurrection, Insider previously reported.
One of the videos he recorded, which included the shooting of Ashli Babbitt by a police officer, was sold to several unnamed news outlets for a total of $90,000, according to a seizure warrant seen by the news agency.
Sullivan licensed parts of the video footage to the Washington Post and NBC, The New Yorker reported in February.
Sullivan reportedly boasted about the value of the gruesome footage of Babbit- one of the five people who died during the unrest on January 6. "My footage is worth like a million of dollars, millions of dollars," he said, according to the court filings.
"Dude, this s--- is gonna go viral," Sullivan crowed shortly after watching Babbitt fall to the ground in a pool of blood, The New Yorker reported.
Sullivan is one of the many insurrectionists who is using the legal defense that he was at the Capitol siege purely for journalistic reasons.
But, according to an affidavit against him submitted to the US District Court for DC, he played a more active role in the Capitol siege. He is accused of using a microphone to shout, "Let's burn this s--t down," while breaching the Capitol's security barrier, the affidavit said.
An FBI affidavit also pointed out that the self-proclaimed journalist had no press credentials, the Rolling Stone reported.
Sullivan is charged with eight criminal counts including weapons charges, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.