DOJ seeking more than 17 year sentence for ex-NYPD officer in Jan. 6 case
Federal prosecutors will seek a seventeen-and-a-half-year sentence for a former Marine and New York Police Department officer convicted on six counts related to his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a sentencing memorandum on Thursday recommending the 210-month sentence for Thomas Webster for violently assaulting a Washington police officer, “spearheading” the breach of a police line outside the Capitol and “disgracing a democracy that he once fought honorably to protect and serve.”
The sentence would be nearly double the longest prison sentence handed down by a court in a Jan. 6 case so far, CBS News reported.
Webster’s sentencing is scheduled for next Friday.
A jury in May found Webster guilty on five felonies and one misdemeanor, including assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer using a deadly or dangerous weapon, engaging in an act of physical violence on Capitol grounds and entering or remaining in a restricted building with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
DOJ had released footage of Webster carrying a metal flagpole with a red U.S. Marine Corps flag, berating D.C. Metropolitan Police Department cfficer Noah Rathburn.
“You f—ing piece of s—. You f—ing Commie motherf—ers, man … Come on, take your s— off. Take your s— off,” Webster yelled at the officer.
Webster then swung the flagpole at the officer, which he wrested from Webster. Webster then broke through a metal barricade, tackling Rathburn to the ground and choking him by the chinstrap of his gas mask, making it difficult for the officer to breathe, prosecutors said.
DOJ also asked the court to make Webster pay $2,060 in restitution, a mandatory $100 fine for each of the five felonies and a mandatory $10 fine for the misdemeanor.
Webster’s attorneys, meanwhile, asked the court to honor his 127 days in custody that immediately followed his arrest and only further sentence him to supervised release.
“A comparison of Mr. Webster’s relevant conduct and life history to the conduct and history of the other defendants who have been sentenced in connection to the Capitol riot would not justify the disparity and sentences that either the guidelines or the government’s recommendation would create,” his attorneys wrote.
Webster’s attorneys argued he was “swept up” in the crowd and admitted his role in the riot upon learning he was under investigation. Webster now believes he was “duped and used as a pawn” by elected officials.
“Defendant is no longer under any illusion that the 2020 election was stolen or that he was fighting for a just cause,” they wrote. “Mr. Webster certainly acknowledges in retrospect that his actions seriously injured this country.”
Source: TEST FEED1
