Boise, Idaho (AP) — A man in Idaho who hit a police officer with a pipe as part of a mob that attacked the US Capitol last year was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison on Friday.
Duke Edward Wilson, a 68-year-old logger in the small town of Nampa, told US District Judge Royce Lamberth that he didn’t remember much of his actions. Prosecutors said they had attacked at least three police officers in a tunnel in the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Mr. Lambert said the riot was a “terrible day for our country” and required a 51-month sentence (the longest sentence allowed by federal judgment guidelines).
“It’s a message that the court must send, and our country can’t deal with it,” Lambert said.
A federal judge who oversees hundreds of cases against those accused of participating in riots Ectenia of excuses Expressions of remorse from those convicted of dozens of judgments so far.
Over 700 people I was charged More than 200 people have been found guilty of crimes related to the siege of the Houses of Parliament.
In addition to Wilson, at least five other defendants have been convicted of assaulting police, most of whom have been sentenced to 41 to 63 months in prison.
Wilson pleaded guilty last September for attacking, resisting, and obstructing a serious offender officer and obstructing official proceedings.
In exchange for his plea, federal prosecutors agreed to withdraw some other related charges. Wilson and his lawyer, Charles Peterson, were summoned from the Peterson office in Boise, Idaho, without physically appearing in court for a trial in federal court in Washington, DC.
Aquilino Gonell, a U.S. Capitol police officer, told a judge at a hearing that he was still suffering from an injury after Wilson’s attack and had surgery to melt his leg bones and repair his shoulder, requiring additional shoulder surgery. He said it could be.
Prosecutors said that after Wilson charged a set of doors in the tunnel and prevented them from closing, he tried to rain them using a thin PVC pipe that he believed he found on the ground. Stated. Gonnel tried to prevent the pipe from hitting a fellow police officer who didn’t have a helmet, he said.
“At that time, my hands were bleeding from the block,” Gonnel said. “He insisted that we continue to fight me to prevent us from closing that door, when he and his fellow rebels were evacuating from the exact same route to the House of Representatives and the Senator. It will allow us to move forward in the tunnel and the House of Representatives. “
However, Wilson characterized his behavior differently in a written statement filed in court, claiming that he was swept away by the crowd and pushed towards the door.
Wilson also claimed that he didn’t remember the most aggressive of his actions, but admitted that he had committed them based on a video from the scene.
“It was stupid for me to do such a thing,” he told the judge. “I made a very bad decision by going to that place that day.”
Gonnel criticized Wilson for “fake remorse” and believed that if he heard the same “meeting cry” that Wilson did on January 6, he would attack the Capitol again. Stated.
“I vividly remember what happened to me and him that day,” Gonell said. “More than a year later, I still can’t wear police uniforms because of those injuries because of what he did to me and my fellow police officers.”
According to the judge, Wilson will have to be subject to three years of probation after being released from prison.
He will also have to pay reparations that have yet to be determined for damages to the US Capitol and Gonell.