LANG'S ATTORNEYS DESCRIBE CLIENT AS "A GOOD PERSON' WHO SHOULD BE RELEASED ON BAIL WHILE AWAITING TRIAL IN DC
Narrowsburg native Edward Jacob Lang, wearing a gas mask while holding a baseball bat and a U.S. Capitol Police shield on January 6, 2021, in photo from Getty Images. The photo was used by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington to build its case against Lang.
Washington, DC - Less than three weeks before his participation in the U.S. Capitol riots on January 6, Town of Tusten native Edward Jacob Lang assaulted - and allegedly tried to strangle - a childhood friend from Sullivan County who is now living in Ohio.
The incident allegedly happened on December 19, 2020 in Lima, Ohio, according to
detailed reports from the Lima (Ohio) Police Department that were obtained exclusively by The SullivanTimes this week.
And, in an exclusive interview on Monday, the childhood friend - who asked not to be identified by name in this article - said that he declined to press charges after the alleged assault, partly because of their long history as friends and not wanting anything further to do with Lang.
But Lima Police still had sufficient evidence to arrest and charge Lang with Operating A Vehicle While Impaired (OVI). The vehicle Lang used to drive from New York to Ohio was a rental or loaner from Prestige Towing, the childhood friend said.
Today, E. Richard Eddy, II, the chief prosecutor for the City of Lima, told The SullivanTimes that there is an outstanding warrant for Lang's arrest that was filed on March 9 because he did not appear in court for his trial.
The Lima prosecutor said that he was unaware that Lang faces an 11-count federal indictment and has been incarcerated since his arrest by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at his Newburgh home in mid-January.
Eddy said that a first offense for OVI in Ohio is a choice of three days in jail or a mandatory three-day course that educates about the dangers of driving under the influence.
The City of Lima police report included details of what led up to the fight between Lang and his friend, even though assault and robbery charges were not filed by the victim and were not pursued by the Allen County prosecutor after consultation with City of Lima Police.
According to the police report, Lang, now 26, said to his childhood friend:
“ I’ll f--k you up and leave your face deformed.”
The report further noted that the childhood friend told police that he "believed Edward (to follow through on the threat of violence) due to Edward being an experienced wrestler when he was in school. "
The friend, who grew up in Sullivan County, said he then started to back away and tried to avoid Lang. He told The SullivanTimes that despite his attempt to get away from Lang, the son of Ned Lang (former Town of Tusten council member and a major campaign donor to former President Donald J. Trump) continually chased him to inflict harm.
The friend from Sullivan said Lang first contacted him sometime in December to inform him that he was driving to Illinois and was passing through Ohio. The pair did connect and visited a Lima bar, where the childhood friend said Lang got drunk.
He said Lang later that night became belligerent because, according to police, some female patrons didn't want to spend time with him after the bar closed. Lang reportedly brawled with at least one man outside the bar and, in a separate incident on the street near the police department, began punching his Sullivan friend.
Asked why Lang would begin punching him, the childhood friend replied that Lang was upset that he did not help the former Narrowsburg resident to fight with the local man. During the fight, the now-former friend said he attempted to dial the emergency code on his cellphone to call police but Lang grabbed the phone from him and tossed it out of his reach. That was where an initial charge of robbery initiated.
Meanwhile, on Monday (August 23), Lang's attorneys were trying to convince a federal judge in Washington that their client should be released on bail. In a motion seeking Lang's pre-trial release, they quoted from "Schindler's List" and The Talmud to make their case that Lang is "a good person, and good people still exist in this world."
The argument made by Lang's attorneys stems largely from the affidavit of one other participant in the riots named Philip Anderson, who claims that Lang saved his life on January 6. Anderson states that Lang saved him from the Capitol Police, who themselves were brutally attacked for hours by the mob at the Capitol that day. Federal prosecutors allege that Lang was one of those who engaged in violence with Capitol Police on January 6.
The SullivanTimes on Tuesday reached out to Lang's lead attorney, Steven A. Metcalf, II for comment and forwarded a copy of the full City of Lima Police Department report on Lang from the December incident.
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(Editor's Note: At press time, it's unclear why Lang, a resident of Newburgh, NY was driving west from New York. The friend said that he thought Lang had a home in Illinois but that could not be confirmed at press time. Approximately 56 miles southeast of Lima, is Woodstock, Ohio where a bar owner named Jessica Watkins , an Army veteran, also faces serious felony charges in connection with the January 6 riots. She allegedly recruited people as a member of The Oathkeepers to stage the riots at the Capitol. A few days after the riots, Lang himself went online to recruit Trump supporters for future violence. It's unknown if there is any link between Lang's presence in Ohio just a few weeks before the riots and an hour's drive away from another high-profile January 6 defendant.
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