By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and LINDSAY WHITEHURST (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The founding father of the Oath Keepers extremist group was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in jail for orchestrating a weekslong plot that culminated in his followers attacking the U.S. Capitol in a bid to maintain President Joe Biden out of the White House after the 2020 election.
Stewart Rhodes is the primary particular person charged within the Jan. 6, 2021, assault to be sentenced for seditious conspiracy, and his sentence is the longest that has been handed down up to now within the lots of of Capitol riot instances.
It’s one other milestone for the Justice Department’s sprawling Jan. 6 investigation, which has led to seditious conspiracy convictions in opposition to the highest leaders of two far-right extremist teams authorities say got here to Washington ready to combat to maintain President Donald Trump in energy in any respect prices.
Before handing down the sentence, the choose advised a defiant Rhodes that he’s a continued risk to the U.S., saying it’s clear Rhodes “wants democracy in this country to devolve into violence.”
“The moment you are released, whenever that may be, you will be ready to take up arms against your government,” U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta stated.
It was some of the consequential instances introduced by the Justice Department, which has sought to show that the riot by right-wing extremists just like the Oath Keepers was not a spur-of-the-moment protest however the end result of weeks of plotting to overturn Biden’s election victory.
Prosecutors had sought 25 years for Rhodes, who they are saying was the architect of a plot to forcibly disrupt the switch of presidential energy that included “quick reaction force” groups at a Virginia lodge to ferry weapons into D.C. in the event that they had been wanted. The weapons had been by no means deployed.
In remarks shortly earlier than the choose handed down the sentence, Rhodes slammed the prosecution as politically motivated, famous that he by no means went contained in the Capitol and insisted he by no means advised anybody else to take action.
“I’m a political prisoner and like President Trump my only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country,” Rhodes stated.
In a primary for a Jan. 6 case, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta agreed with prosecutors to use enhanced penalties for “terrorism,” beneath the argument that the Oath Keepers sought to affect the federal government by means of “intimidation or coercion.” Judges in earlier sentencings had shot down the Justice Department’s request for the so-called “terrorism enhancement” — which might result in an extended jail time period — however Mehta stated it suits in Rhodes’ case.
Prosecutors argued {that a} prolonged sentence is critical to discourage future political violence. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathryn Rakoczy pointed to interviews and speeches Rhodes has given from jail repeating the lie 2020 election was stolen and saying it might be once more in 2024. In remarks simply days in the past, Rhodes referred to as for “regime change,” the prosecutor stated.
People “across the political spectrum” need to consider that Jan. 6 was an “outlier,” Rakoczy stated. “Not defendant Rhodes.”
A lawyer for Rhodes, who plans to enchantment his conviction, stated prosecutors are unfairly attempting to make Rhodes “the face” of January 6. Attorney Phillip Linder advised the choose that Rhodes might have had many extra Oath Keepers come to the Capitol “if he really wanted to” disrupt Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote.
“If you want to put a face on J6 (Jan. 6), you put it on Trump, right-wing media, politicians, all the people who spun that narrative,” Linder stated.
Another Oath Keeper convicted alongside Rhodes in November — Florida chapter chief Kelly Meggs — was anticipated to obtain his sentence later Thursday.
Two different Oath Keepers, acquitted of the sedition cost however convicted of different offenses, shall be sentenced Friday. And 4 different members discovered responsible of seditious conspiracy at a second trial in January are scheduled to be sentenced subsequent week.
The convictions had been a serious blow for the Oath Keepers, which Rhodes based in 2009 and grew into one of many largest far-right anti-government militia teams. Recruiting previous and current members of the army and cops, the group promotes the idea that the federal authorities is out to strip residents of their civil liberties and paints its followers as defenders in opposition to tyranny.
Rhodes’ sentence could forecast what prosecutors will look for former Proud Boys nationwide chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy alongside different leaders of his far-right group this month for what prosecutors stated was a separate plot to dam the switch of presidential energy. The Proud Boys shall be sentenced in August and September.
Rhodes, 58, and the opposite Oath Keepers stated there was by no means any plan to assault the Capitol or cease Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. The protection tried to grab on the truth that not one of the Oath Keepers’ messages laid out an specific plan to storm the Capitol. But prosecutors stated the Oath Keepers noticed a possibility to additional their purpose to cease the switch of energy and sprang into motion when the mob started storming the constructing.
Messages, recordings and different proof offered at trial present Rhodes and his followers rising more and more enraged after the 2020 election on the prospect of a Biden presidency, which they seen as a risk to the nation and their lifestyle. In an encrypted chat two days after the election, Rhodes advised his followers to organize their “mind, body, spirit” for “civil war.”
In convention name days later, Rhodes urged his followers to let Trump know they had been “willing to die” for the nation. One Oath Keeper who was listening was so alarmed that he started recording the decision and contacted the FBI, telling jurors “it sounded like we were going to war against the United States government.”
Another man testified that after the riot, Rhodes tried to steer him to cross alongside a message to Trump that urged the president not to surrender his combat to carry onto energy. The middleman — who advised jurors he had an oblique method to attain the president — recorded his assembly with Rhodes and went to the FBI as a substitute of giving the message to Trump. Rhodes advised the person throughout that assembly that the Oath Keepers “should have brought rifles” on Jan. 6.
Before Thursday, the longest sentence within the greater than 1,000 Capitol riot instances was 14 years for a person with a protracted legal document who attacked cops with pepper spray and a chair as he stormed the Capitol. Just over 500 of the defendants have been sentenced, with greater than half receiving jail time and the rest getting sentences comparable to probation or residence detention.
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Richer reported from Boston.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”