Incarcerated Infowars host Owen Shroyer has made contact with his attorney after nearly two weeks of alleged 23-hour-per-day solitary confinement.
“I just got off the phone with Owen. He is fine and in good spirits,” Shroyer’s counsel Norm Pattis said in a Nov. 17 X post. “He asked me to thank all of you for love and support. He has received many cards, letters and books. Keep them coming!”
#OwenShroyer update. I just got off the phone with Owen. He is fine and in good spirits. He asked me to thank all of you for your love and support. He has received many cards, letters and books. Keep them coming!
We will be able to report more next week.
— norm_pattis (@PattisNorm) November 17, 2023
In September, Shroyer was sentenced to 60 days in federal prison after pleading guilty to a single misdemeanor count of entering and remaining on a restricted building or grounds at the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
The sentencing was half of the 120 days requested by the Department of Justice, which argued the War Room host “helped create” the events of Jan. 6 by “spread[ing] election disinformation paired with violent rhetoric.”
Since entering the Federal Correctional Institute in Oakdale, Louisiana, Shroyer’s X account has posted updates about the commentator.
A Nov. 15 post claimed he would remain in solitary confinement until the end of the month and was only able to communicate via mail.
Today’s call with Shroyer offered some measure of relief for Pattis, who, during an interview with Timcast News on Nov. 16, claimed, “I have no idea what they’ve done with him.”
Prior to the call, Pattis said he encountered an unusual number of challenges trying to contact his client.
The day after Shroyer went into solitary confinement, Pattis contacted officials at the prison and was told someone would contact him.
After about five days had passed, he had not received a response.
“Then I said, send them another note,” Pattis recalled. “I got a pissy note back saying, ‘Well, we told you, we’d get in touch and we will.’”
During the following five days, Pattis’ effort to contact Shroyer was stalled by a seeming inability to prove his identity to officials at the prison.
“I get a request for my bar card,” he said, referencing the card that proves one is a licensed attorney. “So, I send them what I’d sent them. ‘We need more, send us the front and back of your driver’s license.’ So, I send them that. Then I get another note. Send us the back of your bar card. Well, there is nothing on the back. So, I send them that note, and I don’t hear anything for a while. And then the call that we had scheduled tentatively for Monday gets cancelled.”
At that point, on Nov. 16, Pattis said he “turned the whole mess” over to a paralegal and said, “Can you prove to these a–holes by whatever means possible that I’m a lawyer?”
After providing a Certificate of Good Standing from court, which confirms Pattis is a member of the bar, he was granted a legal call with Shroyer at 11 a.m. today.
“I’ve never had a sort of passive-aggressive standoff with a facility as I have in this case,” he said. “I understand their need to be diligent, but it was a little overdone, in my view.”
Pattis, who’s worked as a criminal defense attorney for over 30 years, said that, while it’s generally difficult to contact a person in prison, “This is the most difficulty I’ve ever had.”
Though Pattis couldn’t say for sure, he suspects that his client may be kept in isolation because of a conversation he had with a friend that was recorded and then posted to X on Oct. 31.
BREAKING: The following is an exclusive recorded phone call with Owen Shroyer from inside FCI Oakdale prison. pic.twitter.com/BydqCVsr3M
— Owen Shroyer (@OwenShroyer1776) October 31, 2023
“That tape was broadcast to the world, and the prison is just trying to cut them off from the world,” Pattis said. “I understand that’s part of what prison does. But he’s also been entitled to a hearing and notice and an opportunity to be heard.”
He added:
The Justice Department in reacting this way is making January 6 into a political event. … And Owen is the tip of that spear and I have good reason to believe that the District of Columbia’s U.S. Attorney’s Office has got its thumb on the scales in these cases. … It seems to be that if you’re a member of the right, and participated in the January 6 protests, the Feds are out to crush you to make a point. And Owen’s treatment looks like it’s part of that package. And it’s repulsive.
According to a post on Shroyer’s X account on Nov. 16, the commentator’s release date has been moved up one week to Dec. 18.
Concerns about Shroyer’s treatment behind bars were raised by Rep. Matt Gaetz at a Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBP) Oversight Hearing on Nov. 8.
“I’m worried that throughout our Department of Justice and what we’ve endured that there are some people who are sort of being used as pawns and they’re being mistreated in order to send a message to other people,” Gaetz told FBP director Colette Peters before mentioning Shroyer. “Somebody who sort of spoken out and was prominent in the public … now feels as though there is specific Bureau of Prison retaliation.”
My office has received disturbing allegations of political retaliation by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons against @JohnStrandUSA and @OwenShroyer1776.
I’m looking forward to taking up Director Peters on her offer for on-site visits to investigate how J6 defendants are being treated. pic.twitter.com/pNedDMLfIT
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) November 7, 2023
He concluded by accepting Peters’ invitation for a site visit at the prison.
