Harrodsburg Man Receives Eight Year Sentence For Jan. 6 Capitol Breach
Stephen Chase Randolph
Robert Moore
Herald Staff
[email protected]
A Harrodsburg man has been sentenced to eight years in prison for his actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol. Stephen Chase Randolph, 34, of Harrodsburg, was one of four men convicted of multiple felony and misdemeanor charges for their roles in disrupting a joint session of the U.S. Congress to count the electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election.
Randolph was sentenced to eight years in prison, 36 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution. Randolph had been found guilty of assaulting an officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon and inflicting bodily injury (a metal crowd control barrier). He was also convicted of an additional felony charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding and officer.
Randolph was arrested by FBI agents on April 20, 2021, and indicted later that month. According to the indictment, Randolph and another man, Paul Russell Johnson, 38, of Lanexa, Virginia, used a metal crowd control barrier to “forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, and interfere with” two officers from the U.S. Capitol Police, inflicting “significant bodily injury” on one of the officers. According to a Justice Department press release, the officer lost consciousness and suffered a concussion.
Johnson was sentenced to five years of probation, including intermittent confinement on the weekends for the first year, followed by two years of home and ordered to pay a $25,000 fine and $2,000 in restitution.
Federal agents were able to track down Randolph because of his online history. On images of the Jan. 6 attack, agents described Randolph as wearing a grey Carhartt toboggan, a black jacket with a breast pocket on each side and stitching detail on each sleeve, a grey turtleneck, black gloves with a red stripe, and jeans. The FBI were able to match those images with images from an Instagram account that apparently belonged to Randolph’s girlfriend, as well as other social media accounts.
When the FBI photographed Randolph standing outside his workplace on March 3, 2021, he was wearing the same hat he’d been wearing during the Capitol assault, according to the court documents.
According to a statement of facts filed by the FBI, undercover agents visited Chase at his place of work in 2021. “I was in it,” Randolph is quoted as telling the agents. “It was f*****g fun.”
In addition to Randolph and Russell, James Tate Grant, 31, of Cary, North Carolina; and Jason Benjamin Blythe, 28, of Fort Worth, Texas; were also sentenced on Sept. 19, 2024, by U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb. A fifth defendant, Ryan Samsel, 40, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, will be sentenced on February 4, 2025
According to evidence presented during the trial, the group participated in the first breach of the restricted Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, and led the initial attack on United States Capitol Police. Their attack paved the way for thousands of rioters to storm the Capitol grounds.
In the 44 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,504 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including more than 560 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, a felony. Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.
