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Vincent Gillespie, son of illustrious postwar American artist Gregory Gillespie, was convicted last week on four counts over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
On Friday, December 23, 2022, Vincent Gillespie, 61, a Massachusetts man, was found guilty of assaulting law enforcement based on evidence mostly extrapolated from interviews with the Associated Press and videos captured from surveillance cameras during the U.S. capitol attack.
Vincent Gillespie is the son of renowned American painter Gregory Gillespie, whose works can be found in famous art galleries across the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the National Museum of Art at the Smithsonian. Gregory Gillespie died in 2000.
Vincent Gillespie charged with multiple felony counts
On Friday, December 23, 2022, Vincent Gillespie, a 61-year-old from Athol, Massachusetts, was found guilty of multiple felony charges, including assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers; civil disorder; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, and an act of physical violence on the Capitol grounds or buildings.
The son of Gregory Gillespie, an eminent artist in the post-war era whose abstract paintings and self-portraits have been widely showcased in the Hirshhorn Museum at the Smithsonian, was convicted after AP videos and surveillance video from the building captured Gillespie pushing, shoving, and ramming law enforcement officers defending the building against the attack.
The FBI affidavit read:
“A Capitol camera captured Gillespie at the Lower West Terrace tunnel on January 6, 2021 – still shots from that camera capture Gillespie as he struggled through the crowd, eventually maneuvering through the rioters to the line of police officers who were defending the Lower West Terrace exterior door.”
During the hearing, prosecutors said Vincent Gillespie, who was arrested earlier this year, reportedly yanked a police shield at the capitol building and used it to shove the officers.
Gillespie was reportedly caught on AP video insolently bragging about attacking the building. He said:
“We were almost overpowering them. If you had like another 15, 20 guys behind us pushing I think we could have won it.”
Gillespie was also caught by AP cleaning his eyes after being pepper sprayed in the building. In an interview with the outlet, he said:
“I was with some other guys. And then we were starting to push against them and they were beating us and putting that pepper spray stuff in your eyes. But there were a bunch of people pushing behind us.”
He added:
“What you guys need to know, and no one is going to listen to this, we were very close. If more people had been behind him, then there’s that second set of doors we would have just burst through.”
Gillespie was reportedly caught on police body cameras pushing his way through the crowd, grabbing officers, and yelling “traitor.”
Gillespie, one of more than 200 people charged with assaulting law enforcement in the Jan. 6 attack, will be sentenced on March 17, 2023.
