N.J. man who followed crowd into Capitol on Jan. 6 pleads guilty

A Morris County man has pleaded guilty to two crimes after entering the U.S. Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Timothy Finnegan, 52, of Wharton, took a plea bargain last month for being disorderly or disruptive in the Capitol, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, court records show.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 28 in federal court in Washington, D.C., where all Jan. 6 cases are being handled.
Finnegan’s attorneys from the federal Public Defender’s Office in New Jersey did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
The FBI arrested Finnegan in March of this year on four charges, alleging he illegally entered the Capitol. They interviewed him twice, in 2021 and last year, and each time he said he was inside the Capitol that day, court records show. But, Finnegan claimed he was there to peacefully protest and did not cause any damage or steal items.
Finnegan said he attended then-President Donald Trump’s speech with his girlfriend, walked her back to their hotel, then went to the Capitol to meet up with people he’d met during the speech. He then followed the crowd into the building, he said.
He left when tear gas started to affect him and returned to his hotel, he told the FBI.
In 2022, an FBI agent interviewed an Independence Township Police Department detective who’d interacted with Finnegan and identified him in surveillance pictures from inside the Capitol. In some footage, Finnegan smoked a cigarette while walking down Capitol hallways.
The investigation of the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — the largest federal criminal investigation ever — has led to charges against 1,561 suspects, as of Nov. 6, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington.
Among them, 50 are from New Jersey or have a strong connection to the Garden State, according to NJ Advance Media reporting.
Over 1,200 suspects have pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial, and over 1,000 have been sentenced. More than 600 of them were sentenced to time behind bars. Politico reported on Nov. 8 that 12 case had been dismissed, and just three of those accused were acquitted of all charges.
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Kevin Shea may be reached at [email protected]