A former Virginia state police officer was sentenced Thursday to more than seven years in prison for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the United States Capitol.
In April, Thomas Robertson, 49, was found guilty by a jury of obstruction of official procedure, civil disobedience, trespassing and tampering with evidence after several people, including other officers, testified against him.
Robertson, a former police officer from Rocky Mount, Virginia, was arrested in January 2021 and fired from his position shortly afterwards.
The convict received the same sentence (87 months in prison) as Guy Reffitt, a member of the radical group Three Percenters, who had received the longest prison sentence ever imposed on participants in the attack on the US Congress.
During the trial, the Justice Department attorney argued that Robertson was “part of the problem” on January 6, 2021, and that he decided to act because he did not like the election results.
“This defendant positioned himself … in the midst of the first group of protesters who caused hours of chaos inside the Capitol,” interim prosecutor Risa Berkower said during the trial.
Nearly 800 people were arrested for the attack, and nearly 250 of them pleaded guilty.
Police estimate that 2,500 protesters entered the Capitol and hundreds of them attacked security forces defending its surroundings.
#Excop #sentenced #years #prison #Capitol #attack