Eric Munchel: The Zip Tie Guy’s Sentence, Vacatur, and Pardon

Eric Munchel, the Nashville man widely known as the January 6 “zip-tie guy,” was convicted in April 2023 on five felonies and three misdemeanors for his role in the Capitol breach and sentenced to 57 months in federal prison. He was released in January 2025 after President Donald Trump issued a blanket pardon covering nearly all January 6 defendants.¹

How He Became “Zip-Tie Guy”

On January 6, 2021, Munchel entered the Capitol with his mother, Lisa Marie Eisenhart. Both wore tactical vests. He had a Taser holstered on his hip, a cell phone strapped to his chest recording video, and a pocketknife stashed in a backpack before he went in.² The roughly 50 minutes of footage he recorded on that phone would later become key evidence against him.³

Inside the building, Munchel spotted plastic flex-cuff restraints in a Capitol Police cabinet and grabbed them. His own recording captured him saying, “Zip ties! I need to get me some of them motherf—ers.”⁴ He was also recorded shouting, “I want that f—ing gavel!” and asking about the location of lawmakers. Prosecutors said the pair spent about 12 minutes inside the Capitol. Eisenhart was recorded chanting “Treason!” from the Senate gallery.

Photographs of Munchel walking across the blue Senate chairs in full tactical gear with white zip ties clearly visible turned him into one of the most widely circulated images of the attack. Internet users identified him within days, and the “zip-tie guy” label followed him through prosecution and sentencing.

Background

Munchel was 30 at the time of the attack. He had moved to Nashville from Florida more than a year earlier and had been working as a bartender at Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk on Broadway, though he was fired about two months before the riot for a violation of company policy.⁵

Eisenhart, his mother, was a 59-year-old nurse who traveled with him to Washington for the rally that preceded the breach. The two would be charged, tried, and sentenced together.

Speaking to a reporter the day after the riot, Munchel said, “We wanted to show that we’re willing to rise up, band together and fight if necessary. Same as our forefathers, who established this country in 1776.” He called the breach “a kind of flexing of muscles” and said, “The point of getting inside the building is to show them that we can, and we will.”⁵

He turned himself in to Nashville police on January 10, 2021. FBI agents who searched his apartment that day seized a tactical vest, additional zip ties, firearms, and loaded magazines.²

The Detention Fight and a Ruling That Shaped Other January 6 Cases

Munchel’s pretrial detention produced an appellate opinion that courts would rely on well beyond his own case. After a Nashville magistrate ordered him released on bond in January 2021, Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia stayed that release, and the D.C. district court then ordered him detained as a danger to the community.³

Munchel and Eisenhart appealed. On March 26, 2021, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit issued a 21-page opinion holding that the district court had not adequately conducted a “forward-looking assessment” of whether the defendants posed a concrete, ongoing threat to public safety.² Writing for the majority, Judge Robert Wilkins drew a line later cited across January 6 detention rulings: “Those who actually assaulted police officers and broke through windows, doors, and barricades, and those who aided, conspired with, planned, or coordinated such actions, are in a different category of dangerousness than those who cheered on the violence or entered the Capitol after others cleared the way.”⁶ The panel remanded for reconsideration under that standard. Judge Gregory Katsas dissented in part, arguing the detention order should have been reversed outright.

Conviction

The case, United States v. Munchel, No. 1:21-cr-00118-RCL, went to trial in April 2023 before U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth.⁷ Munchel and Eisenhart chose a stipulated bench trial, an uncommon procedure in which the defendants agreed that certain facts presented by the government were true without admitting guilt, preserving their right to appeal. According to Courthouse News, only about 29 of more than 1,100 Capitol riot defendants had been convicted through this method.⁸

Judge Lamberth convicted both defendants on all counts. Munchel was found guilty of eight: five felonies and three misdemeanors. The felonies included conspiracy to commit obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, entering a restricted building with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and unlawful possession of a weapon on Capitol grounds.⁹ The misdemeanors were trespassing in the Gallery of Congress, disorderly conduct, and parading in the Capitol. Eisenhart was convicted of seven counts, the same set minus the weapons charge tied to Munchel’s Taser.

Sentence

On September 8, 2023, Judge Lamberth sentenced Munchel to 57 months in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and $2,000 in restitution.⁴ Eisenhart received 30 months.⁸

Lamberth applied a sentencing enhancement for threatening members of Congress, based on the zip ties and the defendants’ statements. He told Eisenhart directly: “What purpose you could have had to carry even that one zip tie besides to hold a senator hostage paints too vivid a picture for me to swallow.” The judge said the two “stole the flexi-cuffs and carried them into the Senate gallery because they intended to take senators hostage, if possible. Luckily, all of the senators and their staffs had already evacuated.”⁴

Munchel told the court his participation “was made in poor judgment” and said he had brought weapons out of concern about clashes with counterprotesters. His attorney wrote in a sentencing memo that Munchel’s actions were an attempt at “self-rule” in a “riot situation,” and Munchel himself wrote that he was “hoping to be a father” and had acted out of “love.” Eisenhart took a different tone, submitting a written statement expressing remorse for being the reason her son was there but also telling the court, “I’d do it again.”¹⁰ Both were permitted to self-surrender in December 2023.

The Fischer Ruling and a Partial Vacatur

On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Fischer v. United States, ruling 6-3 that the federal obstruction statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), applies only to conduct that impairs the availability or integrity of records, documents, or objects used in an official proceeding.¹¹ Because Munchel and Eisenhart had both been convicted of conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of an official proceeding, the decision directly reached their cases.

Eisenhart had already been released from prison in January 2024 pending Fischer.¹² After the ruling, the parties filed a joint motion in the D.C. Circuit to vacate the obstruction-related convictions. On November 20, 2024, the D.C. Circuit ordered Eisenhart’s conspiracy and obstruction convictions vacated and remanded her case for further proceedings on the remaining counts.¹³ Munchel’s appeal, previously consolidated with hers, had been unconsolidated in October 2024, and parallel proceedings on his obstruction counts remained pending.

Pardon and Release

Before any resentencing occurred, President Trump signed an executive order on January 20, 2025, granting a “full, complete and unconditional pardon” to individuals convicted of offenses related to the events at or near the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The order directed the Attorney General to seek dismissal of pending indictments and instructed the Bureau of Prisons to immediately release anyone still in custody.¹ Fourteen individuals convicted of seditious conspiracy received commutations to time served rather than full pardons; Munchel was not among that group and fell under the blanket pardon.

He was released from prison following the order, and Nashville news outlets identified him as one of several Tennesseans freed under the clemency action.¹⁴ The pardon ended his 57-month sentence, cleared his convictions, and terminated the pending appellate proceedings tied to Fischer.¹⁵

1
The White House. Granting Pardons and Commutation of Sentences for Certain Offenses Relating to the Events at or Near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021
2
FindLaw. United States v. Munchel, No. 21-3010
3
Courthouse News. Judge Keeps Zip Tie Guy Under Lock and Key
4
NBC News. Jan. 6 Defendant Known as Zip Tie Guy Sentenced to Nearly 5 Years in Prison
5
The Tennessean. Zip Tie Guy Eric Munchel Arrested in Nashville, Accused in Capitol Riot
6
Politico. Capitol Riot Defendants Win Appeals Court
7
CourtListener. United States v. Munchel
8
Courthouse News. Zip Tie Guy and Mother Sentenced to Prison for Bringing Armor, Weapons Into Senate Chamber
9
NewsChannel 5. Zip Tie Guy Among Jan. 6 Rioters Who Could Be Impacted by Supreme Court Ruling
10
Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Woodstock Woman and Zip Tie Guy Son Sentenced on Jan. 6 Charges
11
SCOTUSblog. Justices Rule for Jan. 6 Defendant
12
The Tennessean. Jan. 6 Defendants Tennessee Supreme Court
13
CourtListener. United States v. Lisa Eisenhart
14
WSMV. These Tennesseans Have Been Released After Serving Prison Time for Jan. 6 Riot
15
The Tennessean. Trump Pardons Tennessee January 6 Riots