A retired New York police division officer has obtained a record-setting 10- 12 months sentence for his involvement within the Capitol assault, throughout which he used a steel flagpole to assault one of many law enforcement officials attempting to carry off a mob of Donald Trump supporters.
Thomas Webster was sentenced on Thursday, and his jail time will symbolize the longest punishment to this point for the roughly 250 folks going through punishment for his or her function within the January 6 assault.
The earlier longest was shared by two different rioters, who had been sentenced individually to seven years and three months in jail.
Webster, a 20-year NYPD veteran, was the primary Capitol riot defendant to be tried on an assault cost and the primary to current a self-defense argument. A jury rejected Webster’s declare that he was defending himself when he tackled Noah Rathbun, a Metropolitan police division officer, and grabbed his gasoline masks exterior the Capitol.
US district decide Amit Mehta sentenced Webster, 56, to 10 years in jail plus three years of supervised launch. He allowed Webster to report back to jail at a date to be decided as an alternative of instantly ordering him into custody.
“Mr Webster, I don’t assume you’re a foul particular person,” the decide stated. “I feel you had been caught up in a second. However as you realize, even getting caught up in a second has penalties.
“The opposite sufferer was democracy, and that's not one thing that may be taken flippantly,” Mehta added.
Webster turned to apologize to Rathbun, who was within the courtroom however didn't deal with the decide. Webster stated he wished he had by no means come to Washington DC.
“I want the horrible occasions of that day had by no means occurred,” he instructed the decide.
In a court docket submitting, prosecutors accused Webster of “disgracing a democracy that he as soon as fought honorably to guard and serve”. Webster led the cost in opposition to police barricades on the Capitol’s Decrease West Plaza, prosecutors stated. They in contrast the assault to a medieval battle, with rioters pelting officers with makeshift projectiles and interesting in hand-to-hand fight.
Protection lawyer James Monroe stated in a court docket submitting that the mob was “guided by unscrupulous politicians” and others selling the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. He questioned why prosecutors argued that Webster didn't deserve leniency for his 25 years of service to his nation and New York Metropolis.
“That isn't how we measure justice. That's revenge,” Monroe stated.
In Might, jurors deliberated for lower than three hours earlier than they convicted Webster of all six counts in his indictment, together with a cost that he assaulted Rathbun with a harmful weapon, the flagpole.
The sentencing was certainly one of a number of developments associated to the Capitol assault on Thursday. A New Jersey man pleaded responsible to utilizing pepper spray on law enforcement officials, together with Officer Brian Sicknick, who later suffered a stroke and died. Julian Khater, 33, pleaded responsible to 2 counts of assaulting or impeding officers with a harmful weapon and will withstand 20 years in jail. Kellye SoRelle, a lawyer for the far-right Oath Keepers extremist group, was arrested in Texas on costs together with conspiracy to impede an official continuing.
Webster retired from the NYPD in 2011 after 20 years of service, which included a stint on then mayor Michael Bloomberg’s personal safety element. He served within the US Marine Corps from 1985 to 1989 earlier than becoming a member of the NYPD in 1991.
The Related Press contributed reporting
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