Stewart Rhodes, leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, and one of his subordinates were found guilty on Tuesday of seditious conspiracy for last year’s attack on the US Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn then-President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss.

Rhodes plotted an armed rebellion to stop the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, prosecutors said. The jury in Washington’s Federal District Court found three other defendants in the case – Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, and Thomas Caldwell – not guilty of sedition and acquitted Rhodes in two separate conspiracy charges.

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One of his co-defendants, Kelly Meggs, was also found guilty of seditious conspiracy.

The split verdicts following three days of deliberations by the 12-member jury were an important victory for the Justice Department. It is the first time in around 20 trials related to the Capitol attack that a jury decided that the violence that erupted on January 6, 2021, was the result of an organized conspiracy.

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Now, both Rhodes and Meggs face a maximum 20 years sentence on the charges. Rhodes was convicted on three counts and acquitted on two. US District Judge Amit Mehra presided over the trial.

Seditious conspiracy is the most serious charge brought so far in any of the 900 criminal cases in all 50 states. This was the first conviction of seditious conspiracy since 1995 when 10 Islamist militants were convicted for trying to plant bombs at New York City landmarks.

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Rhodes founded Oath Keepers in 2009, which is a militia group whose members include current and retired US military personnel, law enforcement officers, and first responders. Its members have often shown up heavily armed, at political gatherings and protests around the US including the racial justice demonstrations after the murder of an African-American man named George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer called Derek Chauvin.