By Michael Kunzelman | Related Press
A retired firefighter who threw a fireplace extinguisher at law enforcement officials through the U.S. Capitol riot was sentenced on Tuesday to greater than 4 years in jail.
Robert Sanford struck two law enforcement officials within the head with the hearth extinguisher that he threw as he stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with a mob of Donald Trump supporters. He additionally threw an orange visitors cone at a Capitol police sergeant.
“Sanford additionally hurled obscenities and insults on the legislation enforcement officers on the Decrease West Terrace, calling them ‘traitors,'” a prosecutor, Janani Iyengar, wrote in a court docket submitting.
One of many officers struck by the hearth extinguisher had a bump and swelling on his head; the opposite had a headache and went to a hospital for a medical examination, prosecutors mentioned.
U.S. District Decide Paul Friedman sentenced Sanford to 4 years and 4 months in jail adopted by three years of supervised launch, in line with a web-based court docket document. Federal prosecutors had really helpful a jail sentence of 5 years and 11 months.
Sanford, 57, of Boothwyn, Pennsylvania, labored as a firefighter for 26 years earlier than retiring in 2020. A hearth extinguisher is “an instrument that he was uniquely accustomed to and may have recognized how a lot injury it might trigger,” the prosecutor wrote.
Sanford traveled to Washington, D.C., with pals from Pennsylvania on bus journey organized by the conservative activist group Turning Level USA. He listened to speeches at Trump’s “Cease the Steal” rally earlier than becoming a member of the group that marched over to the Capitol and disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Trump.
Sanford was arrested on Jan. 14, 2021. He has been jailed since he pleaded responsible final September to assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officials utilizing a harmful weapon — a felony punishable by a most of 20 years in jail. He wasn’t accused of getting into the Capitol constructing on Jan. 6.
Sanford started to work with a specialist in cult deprogramming in August 2022 and was confronted with “details” in regards to the baseless conspiracy concept that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from Trump, in line with protection legal professional Andrew Stewart.
“Even after he was incarcerated, he participated in common discussions designed to problem his ideology and perception construction, then assist him perceive how and why he developed the beliefs that led him to make the selections that he did on January 6,” Stewart wrote in a court docket submitting.
Sanford believed that police had attacked him and others with out provocation when he picked up and threw what felt like an empty fireplace extinguisher, his lawyer mentioned.
“Actually, this isn't a justification for his motion neither is it supposed to be,” Stewart wrote.
Greater than 1,000 individuals have been charged with federal crimes associated to the Jan. 6 riot. Over 600 of them have pleaded responsible or been convicted after trials determined by a jury or decide. Over 450 of them have been sentenced, with over half getting phrases of imprisonment starting from seven days to 10 years.
Greater than 100 law enforcement officials had been injured through the Jan. 6 riot.
Additionally on Tuesday, a Nevada man who joined different rioters in assaulting law enforcement officials in a tunnel on the Decrease West Terrace was sentenced to 6 years in jail. U.S. District Courtroom Decide Carl J. Nichols additionally ordered Josiah Kenyon, 35, of Winnemucca, Nevada, to pay over $43,000 in restitution for damaging a window on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Kenyon was dressed because the character Jack Skellington from the film “The Nightmare Earlier than Christmas” when he joined the mob’s assault. He used a desk leg with a protruding nail to strike an officer within the leg and hit a second officer so arduous that it lodged within the officer’s face protect and helmet, prosecutors mentioned.
Prosecutors really helpful a jail sentence of seven years and 4 months for Kenyon, who pleaded responsible to assault prices in September 2022.
Kenyon drove to Washington from Reno, Nevada along with his spouse and younger kids to attend Trump’s rally. Kenyon instructed FBI brokers that he hated Trump and went to the Capitol as a result of he was “attempting to lift the violence degree,” prosecutors wrote, including, “His thought was to have ‘the Trumpers’ cost the police line which might in flip trigger the officers to shoot the rioters.”