A Virginia man who was charged for smashing the glass of a door on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced to eight years in jail Thursday.
Zachary Jordan Alam, 32, convicted of eight felonies and three misdemeanor offenses final 12 months, broke the glass panes of the Speaker’s Foyer door with a black helmet shortly earlier than Ashli Babbitt tried to climb via the damaged space and was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer.
The taking pictures, which was captured on video, remodeled Babbitt, an Air Pressure veteran, right into a martyr for the political proper, which has portrayed her killing as unjust.
On Thursday, U.S. District Choose Dabney L. Friedrich sentenced Alam, of Centreville, Va. to eight years in jail, 36 months of supervised launch and ordered him to pay $4,484 in restitution, in accordance with the press launch from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the District of Columbia.
“A significant sentence is needed ‘to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct’ by others. The need to deter others is especially strong in cases involving domestic terrorism, which the breach of the Capitol certainly was,” prosecutors mentioned within the courtroom submitting.
Alam, who attended then-President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally earlier within the day, assisted different rioters in scaling obstacles. Whereas contained in the Capitol constructing, he threw a pink velvet rope from a balcony at law enforcement officials and tried to kick a door on the fourth flooring of the constructing.
FBI arrested Alam on Jan. 30, 2021, in Denver, Pa., in accordance with the discharge.
“I believe in my heart that I was doing the right thing,” Alam mentioned in courtroom, The Related Press reported. “Sometimes you have to break the rules to do what’s right.”
Because the assault on the Capitol, greater than 1,500 rioters have been charged in practically all 50 states — together with practically 600 who have been charged for felonies associated to assaulting or impeding regulation enforcement.
Trump, who was declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election early Wednesday, vowed all through his marketing campaign that he would pardon the rioters. Now, the Jan. 6 defendants and their attorneys are hoping he retains that promise.
