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Fake news pizzeria shooter pleads guilty, faces 7 years

March 24, 2017

The man, who opened fire at a Washington, D.C. pizzeria in December,  could face up to seven years in prison. He pleaded guilty this morning in U.S. District Court in the nation's capital to one assault charge and an additional federal firearms charge, according to Reuters News Service. 

Edgar Welch, 28, of Salisbury, North Carolina, told the court that he fired the shots from an AR-15 rifle last year after reading what were later proven to be "fake news" reports online that Comet Ping Pong pizzeria had housed a child sex ring with alleged ties to 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Welch traveled to the restaurant that December day to further investigate the rumors he had read about online. He fired three shots inside the business, but no one was hurt. Friday he entered a guilty plea to a federal charge of interstate transportation of a firearm with intent to commit an offense and a local charge of assault with a dangerous weapon.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson set the sentencing date for June 22, after a local charge was dropped against Welch accusing him of firearms possession during a crime of violence. 

Social media posts on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit made the false claims against the pizzeria and Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta. The fabrication was one of many that circulated in the days around the presidential election last fall.