nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
The first U.S. Capitol riot defendant convicted at trial was sentenced to more than seven years in prison Monday, the longest punishment handed down to date over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress.
Guy Reffitt, a recruiter for the right-wing Three Percenters movement in Texas, was convicted March 8 of five felony offenses, including obstruction of Congress as it met to certify the 2020 election result, interfering with police and carrying a firearm to a riot, and threatening his teenage son, who turned him in to the FBI. Prosecutors said Reffitt led a mob while armed at the Capitol and asked a judge to sentence him to 15 years after applying a terrorism sentencing penalty.
U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich condemned Reffitt’s conduct in handing down an 87-month sentence, saying in a nearly six-hour hearing that his views espousing political violence were “absurd,” “delusional” and “way outside of the mainstream.”
What Reffitt and others did at the Capitol “is the antithesis of patriotism,” Friedrich said, adding: “Not only are they not patriots, they are a direct threat to our democracy, and will be punished as such.”
Reffitt, who has proclaimed himself a “martyr” from prison, sought to legitimize efforts by himself and others to foment a rebellion against so-called government tyranny, “believing he was going to forcibly remove [state and federal] legislatures and install a new government that will be approved by judges and the Constitution,” the judge said.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing. And to this day, he has not disavowed these comments,” said Friedrich, a 2017 Trump appointee.
Reffitt had every right to his political views, to peacefully protest, and to support, vote for and associate with whomever he chose, Friedrich said, “but what Mr. Reffitt and hundreds of other Capitol riot[ers] did not have the right to do is to storm the Capitol, carrying firearms, trespass, refuse law enforcement commands or to resort to violence.”
Reffitt “played a central role” at the head of a vigilante mob that challenged and overran police at a key choke point, a stairway leading up from the Lower West Terrace, before the initial breach of windows near the Capitol’s Senate Wing Doors at 2:13 p.m., prosecutors said. After the riot, Reffitt warned his son and 16-year-old daughter that “if you turn me in, you’re a traitor, and traitors get shot,” his son testified at the trial.
The judge said Reffitt took on a “self-appointed leadership role” outside the Capitol, encouraging and waving on a crowd behind him as he confronted police while carrying a handgun and megaphone. Reffitt was also wearing bulletproof body armor, a helmet and had plastic flex-cuffs, Friedrich said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/01/reffitt-sentence-jan6/
Guy Reffitt, a recruiter for the right-wing Three Percenters movement in Texas, was convicted March 8 of five felony offenses, including obstruction of Congress as it met to certify the 2020 election result, interfering with police and carrying a firearm to a riot, and threatening his teenage son, who turned him in to the FBI. Prosecutors said Reffitt led a mob while armed at the Capitol and asked a judge to sentence him to 15 years after applying a terrorism sentencing penalty.
U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich condemned Reffitt’s conduct in handing down an 87-month sentence, saying in a nearly six-hour hearing that his views espousing political violence were “absurd,” “delusional” and “way outside of the mainstream.”
What Reffitt and others did at the Capitol “is the antithesis of patriotism,” Friedrich said, adding: “Not only are they not patriots, they are a direct threat to our democracy, and will be punished as such.”
Reffitt, who has proclaimed himself a “martyr” from prison, sought to legitimize efforts by himself and others to foment a rebellion against so-called government tyranny, “believing he was going to forcibly remove [state and federal] legislatures and install a new government that will be approved by judges and the Constitution,” the judge said.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing. And to this day, he has not disavowed these comments,” said Friedrich, a 2017 Trump appointee.
Reffitt had every right to his political views, to peacefully protest, and to support, vote for and associate with whomever he chose, Friedrich said, “but what Mr. Reffitt and hundreds of other Capitol riot[ers] did not have the right to do is to storm the Capitol, carrying firearms, trespass, refuse law enforcement commands or to resort to violence.”
Reffitt “played a central role” at the head of a vigilante mob that challenged and overran police at a key choke point, a stairway leading up from the Lower West Terrace, before the initial breach of windows near the Capitol’s Senate Wing Doors at 2:13 p.m., prosecutors said. After the riot, Reffitt warned his son and 16-year-old daughter that “if you turn me in, you’re a traitor, and traitors get shot,” his son testified at the trial.
The judge said Reffitt took on a “self-appointed leadership role” outside the Capitol, encouraging and waving on a crowd behind him as he confronted police while carrying a handgun and megaphone. Reffitt was also wearing bulletproof body armor, a helmet and had plastic flex-cuffs, Friedrich said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/08/01/reffitt-sentence-jan6/
