Month: August 2022

A federal judge on Monday sentenced the first Capitol rioter convicted at trial to 87 months, or just over seven years in prison — the longest term of incarceration thus far for a defendant in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of the Jan. 6 assault on Congress .

Guy Wesley Reffitt, 49, of Wylie, Texas, was convicted by a federal jury in March of five felony counts, including obstruction of justice as well as entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a firearm.

Federal prosecutors with the US Department of Justice had asked that Reffitt be sentenced to 15 years in prison. Prosecutors had also — for the first time — asked a federal district court judge to apply a terrorism enhancement, which would effectively define under law that a rioter’s actions amounted to domestic terrorism.

“We do believe that what he was doing that day was domestic terrorism and we do believe that he’s a domestic terrorist,” Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Nestler said Monday.

But the judge overseeing Reffitt’s case, Dabney Friedrich, turned down the request, saying that there have been multiple other defendants since the Jan. 6 attack where DOJ chose not to pursue the terrorism enhancement, despite their conduct appearing to be much more serious and threatening. than what Reffitt was convicted of at trial.

Reffitt’s attorney, Clinton Broden, argued the DOJ was unfairly seeking to make an example of Reffitt simply because he took his case to trial.

“This is the only case where the government has asked for the terrorism enhancement, and this is the only case where the defendant has gone to trial,” Broden said. “I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure that out.”

Reffitt is among the more than 850 people who have been charged in connection with the deadly breach of the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, which disrupted a joint session of Congress agreed to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election . Over 200 defendants have already pleaded guilty to a variety of misdemeanors and felony charges, with some being sentenced to years in federal prison.

Reffitt’s attorney, Clinton Broden, asked that his client be sentenced to no more than two years. He said he was shocked by the prosecution’s recommendation, since his client was not accused of entering the Capitol or assaulting any police officers that day.

“It’s absolutely absurd,” Broden told The Associated Press during a telephone interview last month. “I certainly don’t condone what Mr. Reffitt did. And I think everybody realizes the seriousness of the offenses. But at the same point, there has to be some proportionality here.”

Federal sentencing guidelines in Reffitt’s case called for a prison sentence ranging from nine years to 11 years and three months.

During the trial, prosecutors sought to cast Reffitt, a member of the Texas Three Percenters militia group, as a ringleader of one of the first waves of the mob that breached the Capitol from the building’s west side.

Videos played in court showed Reffitt climbing a stone banister near where scaffolding had been put up in advance of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, and Reffitt confronting US Capitol Police officers who warned him to back down before they fired less-than-lethal ammunition and pepper spray to stop his advance. Other videos presented in court showed Reffitt gesturing to the crowd behind him in what appeared to be an attempt to get them to move up the stairs toward multiple entryways that lead into the building.

At one point in the trial, prosecutors played first-person footage that Reffitt had recorded with a 360-degree camera mounted on his helmet while in the crowd at the “Save America” ​​rally prior to the attack.

“We’re taking the Capitol before the day is out,” Reffitt says in the video. “Everybody is in the same harmony on that… dragging ’em out kicking and f***ing screaming.”

“I didn’t come here to play games… I just want to see Pelosi’s head hit every f***ing stair on the way out,” he says later. “I think we have the numbers to make it happen… without firing a single shot.”

The Justice Department’s case also relied on two key witnesses: Rocky Hardie, a former member of the Texas Three Percenters, who testified against Reffitt in exchange for immunity to cooperate, and Reffitt’s 19-year-old son, Jackson, who submitted an online tip to the FBI first alerting them to his father’s plans weeks before the riot, ultimately leading to Reffitt’s arrest on Jan. 16, 2021.

During an interview with ABC News from jail last December, Reffitt said he “never expected anything like this to happen.”

“This has been disastrous for me and my family, especially for my girls, my son — actually, all of my family,” Reffitt told ABC News

WASHINGTON — A Donald Trump fan from Texas who attempted to storm the US Capitol while armed with a gun was sentenced to more than 7 years in prison on Monday after a judge denied the Justice Department’s request for a “terrorism enhancement” that would have resulted in a lengthier prison sentence.

Guy Reffitt was the first Jan. 6 defendant to go to trial. Reffitt’s own son actually tipped off the FBI a couple of weeks before Jan. 6 but didn’t hear back until after the attack. The government had an enormous amount of evidence against Reffitt, including his friend’s testimony that Reffitt was carrying zip ties and that the duo had made a decision to carry guns because they’d rather be “tried by a jury of twelve than carried by six. “

Reffitt was convicted on five counts in March, including transport of a firearm in support of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding, although he did not make it inside the Capitol or use physical violence because he was eventually incapacitated after charging the police line.

In court Monday, Reffitt described himself as “af**king idiot” and was “not thinking clearly” when he tried to storm the US Capitol.

“I clearly f**ked up,” Reffitt said.

“I did want to definitely make an apology, multiple apologies really, and accept my responsibility because I do hate what I did,” he said.

Reffitt, who was a member of the Texas III%ers, told the judge that he no longer want to associate with militia groups or “or any stupid s**t like that.”

Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, a Trump appointee and a former member of the US Sentencing Commission, said that giving Reffitt a sentencing enhancement for carrying a gun during the commission of a crime and for committing a crime of domestic terrorism would create a sentencing disparity with other Jan. 6 defendants.

“There are a lot of cases where defendants committed very violent assaults and even possessed weapons… that did not receive this departure,” Freidrich said.

Prosecutors had argued that the upward departure for terrorism was warranted because Reffitt was “planning to overtake our government.”

“He wasn’t done,” Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Nestler said. “January 6 was the preface.”

“We do believe that what he was doing that day was terrorism, we do believe he is a domestic terrorist,” Nestler continued.

Reffitt wore a camera on his body that recorded his violent rhetoric during the Trump rally that preceded the riot.

“I’m taking the Capitol with everybody f**king else,” Guy Reffitt said in his own recording, as “Tiny Dancer” played at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally. “We’re all going to drag them motherf**kers out kicking and screaming, I don’t give as**t. I just want to see Pelosi’s head hit every f**king stair on the way out, and Mitch McConnell too, f**k ’em all… It’s time to take our country back… I think we have the numbers to make it happen.”

He also recorded a Zoom meeting on his computer where he talked extensively about his actions on Jan. 6.

Nestler argued that Reffitt “is in a class all by himself,” but Freidrich said she was “not so sure I agree with the government on that” given how many other Jan. 6 defendants said similar things.

“This defendant has some frightening claims that border on delusional, and they are extraordinarily concerning for the court,” Freidrich said. “But other defendants did too. That’s the point I’m trying to make.”

Under Friedrich’s rulings, without the sentencing enhancements, Reffitt’s sentence guidelines were 87 to 108 months in federal prison.

Prosecutors argued during his trial in March that Reffitt “lit the match“ on the west side of the Capitol on Jan. 6, leading the mob up towards the Capitol building where rioters broke in.

“He was ecstatic about what he did, about what the mob did,” a federal prosecutor told jurors. “Back home in Texas, I thought I’ve gotten away with it.”

In court on Monday, Assistant US Attorney Risa Berkower read a brief letter from Reffitt’s son Jackson Reffitt, who testified against his father. He wanted mental health treatment to be part of his father’s sentence from him.

“My father has lost himself to countless things,” Jackson Reffitt wrote. “The prison system should be used not to destroy a person, but to rehabilitate one.”

Former US Capitol Police Officer Shauni Kerkhoff also delivered a victim impact statement, asking for the maximum sentence for Reffitt because of his lack of remorse, his pride in his actions and the turmoil he caused.

“His actions weren’t acts of patriotism, they were acts of domestic terrorism,” Kerkhoff said.

Peyton Reffitt, one of Guy Reffitt’s daughters, said her father was not a threat and that his mental health was “a real issue.” She had a hard time making it through some of her statement because she was overcome with emotion, and her father was visibly crying.

Reffitt’s daughter had previously written a letter to the judge that it was “enormously embarrassing” that her father — like a lot of “middle-aged white men” — was sucked in by Trump and that her dad “fell to his knees when President Trump spoke.”

“President Trump deceived my father and many other normal citizens with families to believe that this past election was fraudulent,” the 18-year-old wrote in her letter.

She argued Monday that her father did not play a leadership role on Jan. 6.

“My father’s name wasn’t on all the flags that were there that day, that everyone was carrying,” she said in court. “It was another man’s name.”