A 24-year-old Costa Mesa man who sat in former Vice President Mike Pence’s vacated seat whereas storming the U.S. Capitol through the Jan. 6 revolt was sentenced Wednesday to a few and a half years in jail.
Christian Alexander Secor — a former UCLA pupil who based a conservative group on the campus — accepted a plea deal earlier this yr requiring that he admit to a felony rely of obstructing an official continuing in return for the dismissal of different costs, reminiscent of assaulting, resisting, impeding officers and civil dysfunction.
In a 2020 Election Day textual content cited by prosecutors in court docket paperwork, Secor wrote, “We’re going to win bigly and if we don’t we’re taking this ship down in flames,” following up a day later by writing, “They’re dishonest. Trump will pull by by authorized or unlawful means.”
On Jan. 5, 2021, Secor traveled to Washington D.C., messaging one other particular person on the way in which that he had “introduced a gasoline masks” as a result of he “anticipate(s) (expletive) to go sideways.”
A day later, Secor attended a “Cease the Steal” rally headlined by then-President Donald Trump earlier than becoming a member of a mob in marching on the Capitol constructing, the place congressional leaders have been within the technique of certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Secor entered the Senate constructing as a rioter with a bullhorn shouted “They will’t cease us all!” Different members of the group chanted “Take it again! Take it again!” in keeping with court docket paperwork.
Whereas touring by numerous components of the Capitol constructing, Secor joined a crowd that overpowered three Capitol law enforcement officials and compelled open doorways. He finally made his solution to the Senate Ground, the place he sat in a seat that had been occupied by Pence, who had been pressured to evacuate the constructing a half-hour earlier.
After leaving the constructing, Secor boasted on Twitter that “At some point completed extra for conservatism than the final 30 years.” Two days later, Secor deleted his Twitter account.
Secor’s lawyer, Brandi Harden, wrote in a sentencing temporary that Secor “will ceaselessly remorse” his resolution to enter the Capitol, including that his life since has been “turned the wrong way up.”
“On the time of his journey to Washington D.C., he had turn into disillusioned by the hysteria a few stolen election coming from social media and information channels,” the protection lawyer wrote. “Christian initially meant to attend the ‘Save America’ rally as a result of he thought it was a protest concerning the 2020 election. He by no means got down to assault anybody or to take part in a riot.”
Throughout his time at UCLA, Secor based America First Bruins, a conservative campus group. A self-described fascist, Secor allegedly known as for America to turn into a “Whites-only” nation in social media posts.
After his arrest, the Bruin Republicans issued an announcement indicating that Secor had been expelled from their group for what they described as inappropriate habits previous to the occasions of Jan. 6.
Greater than 800 individuals nationwide have been arrested in reference to the Jan. 6 revolt — together with greater than two-dozen with ties to Southern California — as a part of an unprecedented federal investigation.
Greater than 400 defendants have pleaded responsible to prison costs associated to the investigation, the majority of whom admitted to misdemeanor counts that amounted to trespassing within the Capitol constructing or adjoining restricted grounds.