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The first defendant in the U.S. Capitol riots to be convicted at trial faces sentencing Monday with prosecutors asking a judge for a 15-year prison sentence, by far the longest sentence sought so far in a case related to the attack on Congress on January 6, 2021.
The request by 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 federal counseling guidelines. Prosecutors say the tough punishment is warranted, following through on threats for the first time to seek an enhanced terrorism conviction sentence for defendants who reject plea deals.
Reffitt was convicted on March 8 of five felonies, including obstructing Congress when it met to certify the result of the 2020 election, interfering with police and carrying a firearm for a riot and threatening its teenage son, who turned him over to the FBI.
The defense for Reffitt, a 49-year-old former rig manager in the oil industry, asked for a sentence below the guidelines of two years in prison. Attorney F. Clinton Broden said in a filing that his client did not commit violence and has no criminal record, but prosecutors are asking for much more time for him than for defendants who have pleaded guilty to assault the police.
Citing terrorism, US seeks 15-year prison sentence in Jan. 6 case
“It makes a mockery of the criminal justice system, the Sixth Amendment’s right to trial, and victims assaulted by [others] to argue that Mr. Reffitt should receive a greater sentence than (let alone three times as much as) a defendant who assaulted police officers on at least two separate occasions, spent three hours on Capitol grounds, and has a history of violence,” Broden wrote.
But Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey Nestler and Risa Berkower said Reffitt’s case is exceptional.
Reffitt “played a central role” in leading a crowd of vigilantes who challenged and overran the police at a key chokepoint, a staircase leading up from the lower west terrace, before the initial breach from windows near the doors of the Senate wing of the Capitol at 2:1 p.m., prosecutors said. After the riot, Reffitt warned his son and 16-year-old daughter that “if you turn me in, you’re a traitor and traitors get shot,” his son testified at trial.
Conventional sentencing rules are “inadequately broad” to account for the extent of Reffitt’s obstruction, witness tampering and weapons offenses, prosecutors wrote in a 58-page sentencing memo.
“Reffitt sought not only to shut down Congress, but also to physically attack, remove and replace lawmakers serving in Congress,” prosecutors wrote.
They called his conduct “a quintessential example of an intent to both influence and retaliate against government conduct through intimidation or coercion” and said it reflected the legal definition of terrorist violence that is subject to harsher punishments.
Reffitt registered at a rally led by President Donald Trump at the Ellipse saying he was ready to drag lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy A. Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Senate, Mitch McConnell (R-Kent.) and shouting,” with “her [Pelosi’s] banging his head every step of the way down.”
A jury found that Reffitt traveled to D.C. from his home in Wylie, Tex., with an AR-style rifle and a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun and repeatedly stated his intent to come armed with a gun and handcuffs. plastic to drag lawmakers out of the building. After returning home from Washington, he threatened his children not to turn him in to the authorities.
The request by the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C., which is overseeing the prosecutions of approximately 840 Capitol siege defendants on federal charges so far, is not binding on U.S. District Judge Dabney L . Friedrich, which has fallen short of prosecutors’ recommendation in 22 sentences since Jan. 24, 2016.
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 a D.C. man who assaulted three officers and smashed a riot shield with a stick.
By comparison, Friedrich has sentenced only three defendants who have so far pleaded guilty to felonies, the longest to 27 months in prison, also for assaulting police.
But prosecutors may be hoping to send a clear signal to the roughly 330 defendants who are still awaiting trial on felony charges and may still be considering whether to take a plea deal or play to a jury. About 70 people have pleaded guilty and nine, including Reffitt, have been convicted at trial.
Rage meets revulsion: First trial Jan. 6 shows family, nation torn apart by Trump
Reffitt left home at age 15, moved in with his older sister and began working as a KFC dishwasher after suffering years of physical abuse from his father, Broden wrote in his client’s defense. After becoming a father, Broden said, Reffitt devoted himself to his children and creating safe spaces for others.
Reffitt, his lawyer said, was a self-made man who took his family overseas while working in places like Malaysia in charge of operations worth tens of millions of dollars, but he saw financially and emotionally devastated after a downturn in the oil and gas industry. . He lost his job in November 2019, just a few months before the pandemic swept the United States.
Reffitt’s daughters noticed that “his mental health was declining” during this period, Broden wrote. Reffitt fell “into the den of political news and jokes online,” wrote one of her daughters, and fell under the sway of Donald Trump “constantly fueling polarizing racial thinking.”
“I saw really like my father[’]Trump’s ego and personality fell to his knees when President Trump spoke, you could tell he listened to Trump’s words as if he was actually speaking to him,” said one of Reffitt’s daughters.
Letters from nine friends and family provided to the court by Reffitt’s defense “describe a depressed man who believed he could not adequately support his family (his life’s mission) and a man who felt rejected and marginalized,” he said. write Broden.
Reffitt started a security business and joined the Three Percenters in Texas. The right-wing anti-government group gets 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 has happened is insurmountable. Not a day goes by that I don’t regret how it affected me [my wife and children]”, Reffitt wrote. “Yes, what’s happening to my family is my fault, I’d like to fix it, please. … I’m just asking for a chance to prove myself again.”