A Florida man was sentenced to greater than 5 years behind bars Friday for storming the US Capitol on Jan. 6 — the harshest penalty dished out but over the riot.
Robert Palmer, 54, was handed a 63-month sentence after he pleaded guilty in October to attacking cops throughout the riot.
“Your honor. I’m actually actually ashamed of what I did,” he informed US District Choose Tanya Chutkan by means of sobs on Friday.
Federal prosecutors mentioned Palmer, of Largo Florida, was on the “entrance strains” of the mob making an attempt to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory within the 2020 election. Palmer threw a wood plank at cops earlier than spraying a hearth extinguisher that he then additionally hurled.
He was halted briefly when he was pepper-sprayed by law-enforcement — however then attacked once more with a pole, in keeping with prosecutors.
In a handwritten letter to the choose, Palmer mentioned that he and different supporters of former President Donald Trump have been “lied to by these on the time who had nice energy.”
“They saved spitting out the false narrative a few stolen election and the way it was ‘our responsibility’ to face as much as tyranny.”
Palmer — one in every of a number of rioters sentenced in Washington, DC, courtroom on Friday — argued it wasn’t honest that he be punished so severely, when the various ringleaders aren’t in jail.
Chutkan agreed — to a degree.
“The individuals who extorted you and inspired you and rallied you to go and take motion haven’t been charged,” the choose mentioned. “That’s not the courtroom’s resolution. I’ve my opinions however they aren’t related.”
The earlier longest sentence for a Capitol rioter was the 41 months dealt to each “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley of Arizona and New Jersey health club proprietor Scott Fairlamb, who was the primary defendant sentenced for assaulting a regulation enforcement officer.
“It needs to be made clear … making an attempt to cease the peaceable transition of energy and assaulting regulation enforcement officers goes to be met with sure punishment,” Chutkan mentioned. “There are going to be penalties. I’m not making an instance of you. I’m sentencing you for the conduct you probably did.”
Palmer is the sixty fifth defendant to be sentenced general out of greater than 700 individuals who have been charged. In all, there was about $1.5 million in injury performed to the Capitol.
With Publish wires
