Jurors said David Walls-Kaufman, 69, a chiropractor and author, was liable for assaulting Metropolitan Police Department officer Jeffrey Smith during the riot at the Capitol and said he must pay $500,000 to Erin Smith, the officer’s widow.
Jeffrey Smith committed suicide on Jan. 15, 2021. His death was later designated as a death in the line of duty.
Erin Smith, in a 2021 civil lawsuit against Walls-Kaufman, alleged that open-source video footage showed Walls-Kaufman assaulting Smith at the Capitol.
The link to the YouTube video she provided no longer works, and Walls-Kaufman has denied carrying out violence against the officer.
“The defendant contends that Officer Jeffery Smith took his own life. Defendant contends he had no part in the death of Officer Smith,” Walls-Kaufman said in a court filing.
“No crime happened. I never struck the officer. I never intended to strike the officer,” Walls-Kaufman said after the verdict was handed down. “I’m just stunned.”
Smith disagreed. The video and analysis by an expert she hired show that Walls-Kaufman assaulted her husband, she said.
“The verdict has provided widow Erin Smith a measure of justice that she has long sought for her husband,” David P. Weber, an attorney representing Erin Smith, told The Epoch Times in an email.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who oversaw the trial, had previously dismissed a claim of wrongful death. She said no reasonable juror could conclude that Walls-Kaufman’s actions could have caused a traumatic brain injury resulting in Smith’s death.
A lawyer representing Walls-Kaufman did not return a request for comment.
Jeffrey Smith was driving to work for the first time after the Capitol riot when he shot and killed himself with his service weapon, officials said. His family said he had no history of mental health problems before the Jan. 6 riot. Erin Smith had alleged that Walls-Kaufman struck her husband in the head with his own police baton, giving him a concussion and causing psychological and physical trauma that led to the suicide.
The police department medically evaluated Smith and cleared him to return to full duty before he killed himself. In 2022, the District of Columbia Police and Firefighters’ Retirement and Relief Board determined that Smith was injured in the line of duty and the injury was the “sole and direct cause of his death,” according to the lawsuit.
Walls-Kaufman has acknowledged being at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and pleaded guilty in 2023 to a misdemeanor, resulting in a sentence of 60 days in jail.
President Donald Trump pardoned Walls-Kaufman earlier this year, but the pardon did not cover the civil lawsuit.
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