john allen mohammed in a sniper spree that killed 10 people in the washington dc area in 2002 his lawyers tried to argue that malvo wasnt responsible for his actions because he had been deluded by the older mohammedattorneys for newspaper heiress patty hearst also argued unsuccessfully that their client had been brainwashed into participating in a bank robbery after being kidnapped by the radical symbionese liberation army groupits not an argument ive seen win said christopher slobogin director of vanderbilt law schools criminal justice program a psychiatry professor and an expert on mental competencyslobogin said that unless belief in a conspiracy theory is used as evidence of a larger diagnosable mental illness say paranoia its unlikely to overcome the laws presumption of competenceim not blaming defense attorneys for bringing this up he said you pull out all the stops and make all the arguments you can make he said but just because you have a fixed false belief that the election was stolen doesnt mean you can storm the capitolfrom a mental health perspective conspiracy theories can impact a persons actions said ziv cohen a professor of psychiatry at weill cornell medical college of cornell university cohen an expert on conspiracy theories and radicalization often performs mental competency exams for defendantsconspiracy theories may lead people to commit unlawful behaviour cohen said thats one of the dangers conspiracy theories erode social capital they erode trust in authority and institutionslawyers for bruno joseph cua a 19yearold accused of shoving a police officer outside the us senate chamber attributed his clients extremist rhetoric before and after the riot to social media attorney jonathan jeffress said cua was parroting what he heard and saw on social media mr cua did not come up with these ideas on his own he was fed themin a parler posting a day after the riot cua wrote the tree of liberty often has to be watered from the blood of tyrants and the tree is thirstycuas attorney now characterizes such comment as bluster from an impressionable young person and said cua regrets his actionsantonio 27 was working as a solar panel salesman in suburban chicago when the pandemic shut down his work he and his roommates began watching fox news almost all day long and antonio began posting and sharing rightwing content on tiktokeven though hed never been interested in politics before or even voted in a presidential election antonio said he began to be consumed by conspiracy theories that the election was riggedcourt records portray antonio as aggressive and belligerent according to fbi reports he threw a water bottle at a capitol police officer who was being dragged down the buildings steps destroyed office furniture and was captured on police body cameras yelling you want war we got war 1776 all over again at officersantonio who wore a patch for the farright antigovernment militia group the three percenters is charged with five counts including violent entry and disorderly conduct on capitol grounds