The primary Jan. 6 rioter to face trial is now the second to obtain a diminished sentence following the Supreme Court docket’s narrowing of an obstruction cost used towards scores of members within the 2021 Capitol assault.
Man Reffitt was resentenced Friday to almost seven years in jail — a modest, seven-month discount from the sentence handed down by a decide in 2022 after a jury discovered him responsible of all 5 counts towards him.
Reffitt, who repeatedly shook his head as he listened to U.S. District Choose Dabney Friedrich and a prosecutor element his function within the riot, informed the decide he was “in my feelings” about what he perceived as “lies and the craziness.”
“I was not there to take over no government,” Reffitt stated, in response to The Related Press. “I love this country.”
“No one has a problem with your feelings,” the decide stated. “It’s the actions you took with your feelings.”
The Texas native and member of the state’s Three Percenters militia chapter confronted costs of transporting weapons from the Lone Star State to D.C., bringing a firearm into restricted grounds, interfering with Capitol Police and threatening two of his youngsters upon coming back from the riot.
He was additionally convicted of obstructing an official continuing — the cost that was neutered by the Supreme Court docket’s 6-3 determination, not alongside ideological traces, earlier this yr.
The statute, Part 1512(c)(2), makes it a criminal offense to “corruptly” hinder, impede or intervene with official inquiries and investigations by Congress. Greater than 350 rioters confronted the cost following the Capitol assault.
The justices dominated that federal prosecutors wrongly retooled the rely that when criminalized doc shredding to embody the conduct of those that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Following the excessive courtroom’s ruling, scores of rioters requested judges to push again or rethink already-imposed sentences and prosecutors dismissed the rely in lots of instances, together with Reffitt’s.
Just one different rioter, Thomas Robertson, has up to now obtained a sentence discount following the ruling. In September, the previous Virginia police officer convicted of six costs obtained a brand new sentence of six years in jail after his obstruction conviction was dismissed, greater than a yr lower than the jail time period he was initially given.
Greater than 1,500 rioters have been charged in reference to the Capitol assault.
