‘Bob’s Burgers’ actor pleads guilty to Capitol riot charges

• Jay Johnston will be sentenced in October and faces up to five years in prison

Bob’s Burgers and Anchorman actor Jay Johnston faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to interfering with police officers during the Jan. 6 insurrection. 

Johnston, 55, who voiced pizzeria owner Jimmy Pesto in the popular cartoon, was arrested last June on charges stemming from the US Capitol riot.

Video footage captured Johnston, of Los Angeles, pushing against police and helping rioters who attacked officers guarding an entrance to the Capitol in a tunnel on the Lower West Terrace, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit. 

The evidence also says that the actor held a stolen police shield over his head and passed it to other rioters during the attack. 

Johnston faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison after pleading guilty to felony civil disorder on Monday. His sentencing is scheduled for October 7.

Johnston, who was arrested last June, is one of more than 1,400 people charged with federal crimes stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. 

He pleaded guilty on Monday to interfering with police officers trying to protect the rom a mob’s attack. US District Judge Carl Nichols is scheduled to issue his sentence in October.

The estimated sentencing guidelines for Johnston recommend a prison term ranging from eight to 14 months, but the judge isn’t bound by that term of his plea agreement with prosecutors.

Johnston’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, told his client not to comment to reporters as they left the courtroom on Monday.

The actor was recorded pushing against police and helping rioters who attacked officers guarding an entrance to the Capitol in a tunnel on the Lower West Terrace, according to an FBI agent’s evidence. 

Johnston ‘was close to the entrance to the tunnel, turned back and signaled for other rioters to come towards the entrance,’ the affidavit states.

A court filing accompanying Johnston’s plea agreement says he used his cellphone to record rioters as they broke through barricades and sent police officers retreating. 

Facing the crowd on the Lower West Terrace, Johnston pounded his fist together and pointed. Another rioter handed him a bottle of water, which he used to help others flush out chemicals from their eyes.

After passing the stolen shield, Johnson joined other rioters in collectively pushing against police officers guarding the tunnel entrance. He left the tunnel minutes later, according to the agreement signed by Johnston.

Three current or former associates of Johnston identified him as a riot suspect from photos that the FBI published online, according to the agent. 

The FBI said one of those associates provided investigators with a text message in which Johnston acknowledged being at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

‘The news has presented it as an attack. It actually wasn’t. Thought it kind of turned into that. It was a mess. Got maced and tear gassed and I found it quite untastic,’ Johnston wrote, according to the FBI.

Johnston was the voice of the character Jimmy Pesto on Fox’s Bob’s Burgers. The Daily Beast reported in 2021 that Johnston was ‘banned’ from the animated show after the Capitol attack.

Johnston appeared on Mr. Show with Bob and David, an HBO sketch comedy series that starred Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. 

His credits also include small parts on the television show Arrested Development and in the movie Anchorman, starring Will Ferrell.

Also on Monday, a Texas woman pleaded guilty to assaulting a Metropolitan Police Department officer during the Jan. 6 riot. 

Video captured Dana Jean Bell cursing at officers inside the Capitol and grabbing an officer’s baton, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.

Bell, 65, of Princeton, Texas, also was captured on video assaulting a local television journalist outside the Capitol that day. 

The FBI affidavit says Bell appeared to reach out and try to push or grab the journalist, who worked for the Fox affiliate in Washington, DC. 

Bell faces a maximum sentence of eight years in prison. US District Judge Timothy Kelly is scheduled to sentence her on Oct. 17. 

Her estimated sentencing guidelines recommend a term of imprisonment ranging from two years to two years and six months.

Bell and her attorney, Joe Shearin, declined to comment as they left the courtroom.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that there are limits on charging Capitol rioters with obstruction. 

The court’s ruling makes it harder for Jan. 6 defendants to be charged with obstructing an official proceeding – which carries up to 20 years in prison – and could upend hundreds of cases.

Officials have said the ruling would not have an immediate effect on the majority of the more than 1,000 convictions already secured by prosecutors.

The government, however, has less than a half-and-a-half to charge hundreds of rioters who have been identified by online sleuths but not yet arrested by the FBI before the statue of limitations expires in 2026.