Doug Jensen Going Back to Jail After Violating Probation to Watch Mike Lindell Videos

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

By Ty Rushing

September 2, 2021

Doug Jensen is going back to jail due in part to Mike Lindell after he violated his pre-trial release conditions to watch the pillow entrepreneur spout conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.

The Des Moines man, who stormed the US Capitol Building on Jan. 6 while clad in a QAnon T-shirt, had his home release revoked by Judge Timothy J. Kelley of the US District Court for the District of Columbia during a hearing on Thursday.

Jensen was in a Washington, DC, jail for months until July 13 when the federal government agreed to release him into his wife April’s custody with a number of conditions, including random visits by a probation officer, no internet access, and undergoing mental health and substance abuse screening.

Two weeks after his release and during an announced visit from a pretrial services officer, Doug Jensen was found in his garage using an iPhone to stream news on Rumble—essentially a far-right version of YouTube—and later confessed to watching Lindell’s cyber symposium a week before he was caught.

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Lindell is a noted election conspiracy theorist, and CEO and Founder of My Pillow, a Minnesota-based bedding company. The event promised—and failed to deliver—undeniable proof that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Lindell is also slated to headline a 9/11 remembrance event in Davenport.

Jensen’s attorney, Christopher Davis, agreed with the prosecution that his client had violated the terms of his release but argued restricting Jensen from accessing the internet was Orwellian and that his client is addicted to the internet.

“I would almost liken it to a compulsion, it just doesn’t add up,” Davis said. “This is an intelligent man—I know this—he is not a bumbling idiot in any sense of the word; he understands.”

Kelly said this infraction proved Doug Jensen couldn’t be trusted to abide by conditions of his release and that April Jensen couldn’t be a trusted custodian of his release due to her role in helping him violate his release.

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When he was caught using the iPhone, Jensen said the phone belonged to his teenage daughter, who later denied it was her device and told a pretrial service officer she had a new phone. Jensen then changed his story and said his wife leaves the news on for him when she goes to work in the morning. He also claimed he did not know the password to unlock the iPhone before proving he did by unlocking the device.

Kelly ordered Jensen to be turned over to the US Marshall Service and left it up to the federal agency to decide where Jensen should be kept in custody. Jensen was previously jailed in Washington, DC, but his attorney petitioned for him to be housed in the Polk County Jail.

“I made Mr. Jensen’s conditions of release extraordinarily clear,” Kelly said. “He was put on notice of those conditions and he chose to violate them in all the ways that he admitted …

“The failure to understand the severity of the potential consequences, I don’t see any reason to believe that he had the wake-up call that he needs and that he will comply with conditions of release in the future.”

 

by Ty Rushing

09/03/21

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  • Ty Rushing

    Ty Rushing is the Chief Political Correspondent for Iowa Starting Line. He is a trail-blazing veteran Iowa journalist, an Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and co-founder and president of the Iowa Association of Black Journalists. Send tips or story ideas to [email protected] and find him on social media @Rushthewriter.

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