Public January 6 profile · ready to claim

Lawrence Silas Billiter

January 6 defendant

Documented editorial-use image

Lawrence Silas Billiter is a 30-year-old man from Flint, Michigan. He is one of a very small number of January 6 defendants who went all the way through a trial, heard a verdict read, and then watched the entire case get erased before a judge ever handed down a sentence. He was never sentenced. Not one day. The case was dismissed with prejudice first. THE MAN AND THE CITY FACT: Lawrence Silas Billiter of Flint, Michigan was 30 at the time of the case. Flint is Genesee County, a city that has taken more than its share and kept standing. (Source: NPR January 6 case database, compiled from federal court records; WNEM and ABC12 Flint, November 2023.) FACT: He was arrested on November 13, 2023, almost three years after January 6, 2021. THE LAW MOVED FIRST FACT: On December 2, 2024, before any trial verdict, the court DISMISSED the Obstruction of an Official Proceeding charge against Lawrence Billiter WITH PREJUDICE. That is the felony count the Supreme Court narrowed in Fischer v. United States in June 2024. It was gone before the trial ended. THE TRIAL FACT: Lawrence Billiter pleaded NOT GUILTY to all charges and exercised his right to a trial. He took a bench trial, meaning a federal judge and not a jury weighed the evidence. FACT: On December 16, 2024, the court returned a verdict finding him guilty on five counts: Civil Disorder; Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers; Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building; Act of Physical Violence in the Capitol Grounds or Buildings; and Parading, Picketing, and Demonstrating in a Capitol Building. He was found guilty on lesser included charges as to the remaining four counts. FACT: Sentencing was set for April 2, 2025. WHAT HAPPENED INSTEAD FACT: On January 21, 2025, the court granted the government motion to dismiss the case WITH PREJUDICE. Sentencing never happened. No judgment of conviction was ever imposed and no sentence was ever served on this case. FACT: On January 20, 2025, President Trump granted clemency covering the January 6 prosecutions. WHAT THIS DOES AND DOES NOT PROVE It does prove this: a felony obstruction count against Lawrence Billiter was dismissed with prejudice on its own, weeks before the verdict. It proves the entire case was dismissed with prejudice five weeks after the verdict, before any sentence. It proves he served no time. It does not prove what any video showed. It does not erase that a judge announced findings on December 16, 2024. We publish both halves, because an archive that only publishes the half it likes is not an archive. THE RECORD U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, docket 1:23-cr-262579 series. Trial and dismissal documents on file at CourtListener. Arrested November 13, 2023. Obstruction count dismissed with prejudice December 2, 2024. Bench verdict December 16, 2024. Case dismissed with prejudice January 21, 2025. Flint, Genesee County, Michigan. No sentence. No judgment. Dismissed with prejudice. That is the record. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.