WASHINGTON (AP/7News) — A former Maryland police officer was found guilty Friday of participating in a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and threw a smoke bomb and other objects at police officers guarding a tunnel entrance.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden heard two days of testimony without a jury this week before finding Montgomery County police officer Justin Lee guilty of two felonies and three misdemeanors. The judge, who also acquitted Lee of two other misdemeanors, is scheduled to sentence him on Nov. 22.

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Lee, 26, set off a smoke bomb and threw it into the tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace, where a mob of rioters was attacking an outnumbered group of police officers. The device struck an officer’s riot shield and filled the tunnel entrance with a large cloud of smoke, prosecutors said.

“No police officer should have to endure such attacks and provocations,” McFadden said.

Lee, who remains free pending sentencing, showed no apparent reaction as the judge read his verdict. His lawyer declined to comment after the hearing.

After Lee’s arrest last October, the police department said it had suspended him without pay. Department spokeswoman Shiera Goff said officers would “proceed with termination procedures” now that Lee has been convicted.

“The actions of one individual do not define the entire department,” the department said in a statement last year.

Montgomery County officials told 7News on Friday that Lee was fired from the agency following the guilty verdict.

“Lee has been relieved of his police powers pending the proceedings. Pursuant to the Public Safety Article of the Maryland Code, Section 3-107, upon a finding of guilt, Lee will no longer be employed by the Montgomery County Police Department,” the agency’s official statement said.

Lee, of Rockville, Maryland, applied to be a Montgomery County police officer in July 2021 – six months after the riots. The police department said it hired Lee about a year after the riots and did not learn of his alleged involvement in the attack until July 2023, when it learned he was under investigation by the FBI.

Videos show Lee wearing a gaiter printed with the Maryland flag over his face outside the Capitol and carrying a military-style medical bag attached to his clothing.

Lee waved to other rioters to pass police officers as the mob attacked a line of police officers in West Plaza, prosecutors said. Lee moved to Lower West Terrace and threw the smoke bomb and three other “rock-like objects” at police officers guarding the tunnel, the judge said. Prosecutors said Lee later joined other rioters and “shined” a flashlight at police officers in the tunnel.

The judge rejected Lee’s claim that he was “just trying to make a statement about police brutality” after seeing police officers use force against other rioters that day. McFadden also said he believed Lee went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Defense attorney Terrell Roberts III said the assault charge in this case only applies to acts involving physical contact with the victim of the attack. Roberts argued that the protective shield prevented physical contact between the smoking device and the officer’s body.

“It would be bad policy to send a man to prison when there is insufficient evidence to meet each and every element of the offense,” he wrote before the trial.

Lee was charged with seven counts. The judge found him guilty of two serious felonies – obstructing police during a disturbance and assaulting, resisting or obstructing officers – as well as misdemeanor and trespassing.

However, the judge also acquitted him of two misdemeanors involving physical violence. McFadden ruled that the prosecution had not presented sufficient evidence that Lee had committed an act of physical violence.

According to the police department, Lee had been on administrative leave since July 22, 2023, when he shot and killed a man suspected of stabbing four people. The department said Lee had not performed any police duties since the shooting, but his unpaid suspension was due to his arrest on the charge on Jan. 6.

On the day of the shooting last year, officers were responding to calls about a stabbing at a thrift store in Silver Spring, Maryland, when they confronted a suspect with a butcher knife. The suspect ignored officers’ requests to drop the knife and lunged at Lee before the officer shot him, police said in a news release.

One of the four victims of the stabbing was seriously injured, police said. A police official told reporters that all of the victims were expected to survive the attacks, which he described as “unprovoked.”

More than 1,400 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riots. More than 900 of them have pleaded guilty. More than 200 others have been convicted after a trial decided by a judge or jury.

Only two of the January 6 defendants were acquitted of all charges after a trial. One of them, a man from Mexico, was acquitted by McFadden after a non-jury trial.