Top 12 Longest Sentences for the January 6th Insurrection (So Far)

     To mark 18 months since the Capitol insurrection, I started Insurrection Detection, a project to highlight and report on developments in the January 6th cases and hold people accountable for their actions. The project was developed as an offshoot of my efforts from this project, "Remember the Sixth," stemming from a need to dedicate the insurrection a project of its own. However, one update worth posting to the "Remember the Sixth" section of this is the 12 longest sentences handed down in the insurrection cases so far. Things have changed quite a bit even since July and will change as the months (and years) drag on. However, as it stands today, these are the 12 longest sentences:

     1. Thomas Webster: 10 years in prison

     A former Marine and NYPD officer, Webster was convicted at trial of five felonies and two misdemeanors for pushing against a barricade before tackling a police officer, choking him with his own mask, and attempting to gouge his eyes out. Also featured in a video calling for people to "send more patriots," Webster had a ballistic vest on and freeze-dried food ready for "civil war" and actually tried to claim self-defense at trial, which earned him extra time behind bars.

     2/3 Thomas Robertson: (7.25 years in prison)

     A former Rocky Mount police officer whose partner, Jacob Fracker, pleaded guilty to a felony and testified against him at trial, was sentenced to 87 months in prison for using a big stick in the Capitol to interfere with police officers and violating his release by purchasing weapons and assembling a pipe bomb in his home and destroying evidence by tossing his phone in the Atlantic Ocean; at trial, he claimed that, in spite of being a police officer, the stick was for a disability he sustained in Afghanistan during his military service; the judge and jury didn't buy it.

     2/3. Guy Reffitt (7.25 years in prison)

     A recruiter for the Three Percenters militia and founder of a local militia group, Reffitt was the first insurrectionist to be convicted at trial when a jury found him guilty of five felonies for showing up with a gun to the Capitol, confronting police before being pepper sprayed, leading the charge of the mob toward breaching the Capitol, and threatening to murder his own son for turning him in. His ridiculous defense: the video he took and others took of his actions was fake.

     4/5. Mark Ponder (5.25 years in prison)

     Mark Ponder had already done three years in prison for robbery and was a career criminal barred from voting when he stormed the Capitol on January 6th. Judge Tanya Chutkan sentenced him to 63 months in prison, three months longer than the sentence the DOJ requested, for assaulting police repeatedly with a metal pole and a hockey stick-- injuring Officer Aquilino Gonell, who testified before the January 6th Committee and has advocated for stiff penalties against January 6th defendants-- and for chastising the police who handcuffed him at the Capitol but were forced to let him go due to lack of space.

     4/5. Robert Scott Palmer (5.25 years in prison)

     Unlike Ponder, Florida's Robert Scott Palmer was a small business owner and father before he stormed the Capitol on January 6th. However, like Ponder, he was sentenced to 63 months in prison by Judge Tanya Chutkan after pleading guilty to assaulting police by throwing a fire extinguisher twice, spraying it at them, throwing a board, and using a pole like a spear against officers while clad in his distinctive American flag jacket.

     6. Anthony Robert Williams (5 years in prison)

     This Michigan moron who bragged extensively on social media before, during, and after the insurrection, where he smoked marijuana inside the Capitol and took selfies smiling and holding the American flag, was convicted of obstructing an official proceeding and related misdemeanors and sentenced to five years in prison with three years of supervised release and $7,000 in fines and restitution. He tried, pitifully and thankfully unsuccessfully, to argue that he had a change of heart in the middle of the jury trial because of the evidence the prosecution presented.

     7. Joshua Pruitt (4.5 years in prison)

     A Proud Boys recruit with a long criminal history who repeatedly violated his bond, Joshua Pruitt was a D.C. resident who was captured on video making contact with Senator Chuck Schumer during the riot. He has refused to acknowledge that the election was legitimate yet pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced to 55 months in prison with three years of supervised release and $2,000 restitution.

     8. Duke Wilson (4.25 years in prison)

  An Idaho resident who entered one of the earlier guilty pleas to assaulting a police officer, Duke Wilson was famously photographed with his face and head covered in bear spray that day amidst the violence in the Lower West Terrace before being sentenced to 51 months in prison with three years of supervised release and $2,000 restitution.

     9. Timothy Louis Hale-Cusanelli (4 years in prison)

     A Nazi sympathizer who sported a Hitler mustache, used a potato gun with the words "white power" written on it to destroy property, hosted a white supremacist YouTube show, and obstructed justice by lying on the stand and by organizing fundraisers for other insurrectionists, Timothy Louis Hale-Cusanelli was sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted of a felony and numerous misdemeanors by a jury, in spite of claiming he didn't know Congress met in the Capitol building.

     10/11/12. Devlyn Thompson (3.75 years in prison)

     Devlyn Thompson, a Seattle man who used a baton in an attempt to knock pepper spray from the hands of police officers in the Lower West Terrace, passed stolen riot shields to the front of the crowd to use against law enforcement, and threw a speaker into the group of police; was sentenced to 46 months in prison after pleading guilty to assaulting law enforcement with a dangerous or deadly weapon, the baton. In arguing for a lighter sentence, he claimed that his autism prevented him from grasping the severity of what was happening, an argument the judge rejected, noting that his autism apparently did not stop him from maintaining a job that paid him a six-figure salary.

     10/11/12. Lonnie Coffman (3.75 years in prison)

     One of the scarier Capitol defendants in spite of being 72 years old and never entering the Capitol, this Vietnam vet from Alabama became infamous for carrying weapons and Molotov cocktails in his pickup truck. He received his three year, 10 month sentence after pleading guilty to two weapons charges. While noting his age and his military service, the judge was not satisfied with his lack of an explanation for carrying a small arsenal of illegal weapons to the Capitol.

     10/11/12. Howard C. Richardson (3.75 years in prison)

     This is another scary 72-year-old Vietnam veteran, this man from Pennsylvania. He used a metal flagpole to swing at officers so forcefully that said pole broke before assisting in pushing a large metal sign that has come to be known as the "Sedition Billboard" into a line of officers. Like Thompson, Coffman, and most other Capitol insurrection felons, he was also ordered to spend three years on supervised release and pay $2,000 in restitution afterward.

     As I stated before, this is likely to change sooner rather than later. Other defendants convicted at trial, including white supremacist Kevin Seefried and officer assailants Patrick McCaughey and Tristan Chandler Stevens, are awaiting sentencing; as are defendants who have pleaded guilty to even more serious crimes: William Todd Wilson and Brian Ulrich face 63 to 78 months in prison for seditious conspiracy while Joshua James faces 87 to 108 months for the same crime. Matthew Greene, Mark Grods, Josiah Colt, Caleb Berry, Jason Dolan, Jon Ryan Schaeffer, and Charles Donohoe face 41 to 51, 51 to 63, 63 to 78, and 97 to 121 month sentencing guidelines for conspiracy and obstructing an official proceeding. Josiah Kenyon and Julian Khater (the latter man being the one who assaulted Officer Brian Sicknick) face sentencing guidelines of 78 to 97 months in prison for assaulting law enforcement. The Oath Keepers and Proud Boys charged with sedition as well as dozens of men and women who assaulted law enforcement also await trial and are likely to get even longer sentences than those aforementioned people awaiting sentencing.

     It took until December 2021 to see a five-year prison sentence for the January 6th insurrection, and it took until September 2022 to see a 10-year prison sentence for a Capitol insurrectionist. In 2023, it is likely we could see the first sentence of 20 years or longer. More than 900 people have been arrested so far and hundreds more will be arrested in the coming months and years. It has been and will be a long, slow, painful process for justice, but we are finally beginning to see accountability for the crimes committed against the United States on January 6th.