Comment The first Capitol riots defendant convicted at trial faces sentencing Monday with prosecutors asking a judge for a 15-year prison sentence, by far the longest sentence sought to date in a case related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress. . The request for Guy Reffitt, a recruiter for the extremist Three Percenters movement who led a mob on Capitol Hill, is about a third longer than the nine to 11 years recommended under advisory federal guidelines. Prosecutors say the stiff punishment is warranted, following threats for the first time to seek enhanced terrorism convictions for defendants who reject plea deals. Reffitt was convicted on March 8 of five felonies, including obstructing Congress as it convened to ratify the result of the 2020 election, interfering with police and carrying a weapon in a riot and threatening his teenage son, who turned him over to the FBI. The defense for Reffitt, a 49-year-old former oil industry rig manager, asked for a two-year sentence below the guidelines. Attorney F. Clinton Broden said in a filing that his client did not commit violence and has no criminal history, but prosecutors are seeking far more time for him than for defendants who have pleaded guilty to assaulting police. Citing terrorism, the US is seeking a 15-year prison sentence in the January 6 case “It makes a mockery of the criminal justice system, the Sixth Amendment right to trial, and the victims of assault by [others] to argue that Mr. Reffitt should be sentenced to a sentence greater than (let alone three times greater than) a defendant who assaulted police officers on at least two separate occasions, spent three hours at the Capitol, and has a history of violence,” Broden wrote. But Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey Nestler and Riza Berkower said Refitt’s case is exceptional. Reffitt “played a central role” in leading a vigilante mob that challenged and captured police at a key choke point, a stairway leading from Lower West Terrace, before the initial breach of windows near the Capitol’s Senate wings on 2: 1 p.m., prosecutors said. After the riot, Refit warned his son and 16-year-old daughter that “if you turn me in, you’re a traitor and traitors are shot,” his son testified at trial. Conventional sentencing rules are “insufficiently broad” to account for the breadth of Reffitt’s obstruction, witness tampering and weapons offenses, prosecutors wrote in a 58-page sentencing memo. “Reffitt sought not only to stop Congress, but also to physically attack, remove and replace lawmakers serving in Congress,” prosecutors wrote. They called his conduct “a substantial example of intent to both influence and retaliate against government conduct through intimidation or coercion” and said it reflected the statutory definition of terrorist violence that was subject to harsher punishment. A jury found that Reffitt traveled to D.C. from his home in Wylie, Texas, with an AR-style rifle and a .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol and repeatedly stated his intention to come armed with a handgun and plastic handcuffs to drag legislators outside the Building. After returning home from Washington, he threatened his children to make sure they didn’t turn him in to the authorities. The request by the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C., which is overseeing the prosecution of about 840 Capitol siege defendants who have been federally indicted so far, is not binding on U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, who has proceeded under the recommendation of the prosecutors on 22 of January 24 6 sentences to date. The longest sentence in a Jan. 6 case so far is 63 months, given to a Florida man who pleaded guilty to attacking police with a fire extinguisher and wooden plank and to a D.C. man who assaulted three police officers and broke a riot shield with a pole. By comparison, Friedrich has sentenced only three defendants who have pleaded guilty to felonies so far, the longest to 27 months in prison, also for assaulting police. But prosecutors may be hoping to send a clear message to the roughly 330 defendants still awaiting trial on felony charges who may still be considering accepting a plea deal or going to a jury. About 70 people have pleaded guilty and nine, including Refit, have been convicted at trial. Anger meets disgust – Jan. 6 first trial shows family, nation torn apart by Trump Reffitt left home at 15, moved in with his older sister and began working as a KFC dishwasher after years of physical abuse from his father, Broden wrote. After becoming a father himself, Broden said, Refitt was devoted to his children and to creating safe spaces for others. Reffitt, his lawyer said, was a self-made man who took his family abroad while working in places like Malaysia, responsible for businesses worth tens of millions of dollars, but was financially and emotionally devastated after a downturn in the oil and natural gas industry. of gas. He lost his job in November 2019, just a few months before the pandemic swept the United States. Reffitt’s daughters noticed his “mental health was declining” during that time, Broden wrote. Refitt fell “into the rabbit hole of political news and online banter,” one of his daughters wrote, and fell under Donald Trump’s rule “constantly fueling polarizing racial thinking.” “I could really see how my father[’]His ego and personality fell to his knees when President Trump spoke, you could tell he was listening to Trump as if he was really speaking to him,” said one of Refitt’s daughters. Letters from nine friends and relatives given to the court by Reffitt’s defense “describe a depressed man who believed he was unable to adequately provide for his family (his life’s mission) and a man who felt left out and marginalized.” , Broden wrote. Reffitt started a security business and joined the Three Percenters in Texas. The right-wing anti-government group takes its name from the myth that only 3 percent of colonists fought in the American Revolution against the British. In a letter to the judge, Reffitt described a series of family traumas since 2020, including medical and mental health emergencies, and asked for leniency for the sake of his family. “My regret for what happened is insurmountable. Not a day goes by that I don’t regret how much this affected me [my wife and children],” Reffitt wrote. “Yes, what is happening to my family is my fault, I would like to fix it, please. … I’m just asking for a chance to prove myself again.”
