The United States Justice issued this Monday a sentence of more than seven years in prison against one of the protagonists of the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in what constitutes the harshest sentence known so far against those who participated in the attack on the headquarters of Congress in Washington. Guy Refitt, 49, a member of the Three Percenters group – a US paramilitary group whose name refers to the 3% of settlers who are supposed to have rebelled against the United Kingdom to achieve independence – had been found guilty in March during the first trial on that assault. Among the charges whose commission the court considered proven was that of having obstructed the work of Congress and the police.
On the day of the assault, Reffitt was at the head of the first group that attacked the Congress building and helped force the police lines that were trying to protect the institution. According to prosecutors, she was carrying a gun, a bulletproof vest, a helmet and zip ties to use as handcuffs. After being hit by tear gas, he backed down as hundreds of Donald Trump supporters wreaked havoc inside the Capitol. The mob did not achieve its objective of preventing the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory, but it did manage to postpone it.
“I didn’t go in, but I helped start the fire,” the Texas-born oil industry employee boasted in a video. Upon his return to Wylie, near Dallas, he threatened his two children so they would not report him to the police. “Traitors, we kill them,” he threatened in a conversation recorded and given to the FBI by his 19-year-old son, Jackson.
During the trial, the prosecution relied on videos in which he appeared, in the front row, haranguing the crowd who called him “leader”. Since the attack, more than 850 people have been detained. Of them, 330 have pleaded guilty and only a dozen have been tried so far.
Follow all the international information in Facebook Y Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe
#justice #sentences #Capitol #attackers #years #prison