A person who ran for the congressional seat beforehand held by former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) taunted a federal decide’s choice to right away ship him to jail for his function within the Jan. 6 Capitol assault.
Philip Sean Grillo, who was sentenced Friday to 12 months in jail, let it’s recognized in court docket that President-elect Trump would probably pardon him.
“Trump’s gonna pardon me anyways,” Grillo, a New York district chief from Queens, mentioned as U.S. Marshals took him into custody.
In 2023, Grillo was discovered responsible of the felony cost of obstruction of an official continuing, together with a sequence of misdemeanors. After the Supreme Court docket narrowed the federal government’s use of obstruction regulation this summer time, Grillo filed a movement for acquittal on that rely.
U.S. District Choose Royce Lamberth, who presided over the case, sentenced Grillo on Friday for the remaining misdemeanor counts.
“I will do my job as I’m bound by oath to do, and the president will do his. It’s as simple as that,” the decide mentioned.
Grillo declared candidacy for Santos’ seat in 2023. Nevertheless, regardless of an curiosity in politics, Lamberth argued that, for now, defendants needs to be prosecuted with out regard to their “political affiliation or any other attribute.”
“Having read dozens of indictments related to Jan. 6, I can say confidently: Nobody has been prosecuted for protected First Amendment activity. Nobody is being held hostage. Nobody has been made a prisoner of conscience. Every rioter is in the situation he or she is in because he or she broke the law, and for no other reason,” Lamberth acknowledged.
Greater than 1,500 rioters have been charged in reference to the Capitol assault.
