WASHINGTON: A Kentucky man who was the first rioter to enter the US Capitol during the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress by Donald Trump supporters was sentenced to 53 months in prison on Tuesday.

Michael Sparks, 46, a factory supervisor, was convicted in March of civil disorder and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building.

Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 57 months while Sparks’s defence attorneys asked that he be given 12 months of home detention.

District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Sparks to 53 months in prison and a $2,000 fine.

Nearly 1,500 charged with storming of Congress by Trump’s supporters

In their sentencing memorandum, prosecutors said Sparks was “the very first rioter to enter the United States Capitol building” and “helped light the fire that day”. Sparks jumped through a broken window, they said, “ignoring the warnings of the rioters behind him and the pepper spray (from US Capitol police) that hit him squarely in the face”.

Capitol police sergeant Victor Nichols, testifying at Sparks’s trial in Washington, said he “acted like a green light for everybody behind him, and everyone followed right behind him.”

Nearly 1,500 people have been charged for their roles in the storming of Congress by supporters of former Republican president Trump.

David Dempsey, 37, of Santa Ana, California, described by prosecutors as one of the “most violent” members of the mob, was sentenced to 20 years in prison this month.

Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the far-right Proud Boys group, was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

The assault on the Capitol left at least five people dead and 140 police officers injured.

It followed a fiery speech by Trump to supporters near the White House in which he repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 election.

Trump faces four federal felony charges in Washington related to efforts to overturn the election results, but the case is unlikely to reach trial before the November presidential vote, in which he is once again the Republican candidate.

New legal fights

Meanwhile, the former police officer charged in the US Capitol attack on Jan 6, 2021, returns to court on Wednesday for the first time since convincing the US Supreme Court to raise the legal bar on obstruction charges against scores of alleged rioters.

The high court’s decision in the case of Joseph Fischer has implications for over 250 prosecutions tied to the Capitol riot, when supporters of Trump breached the building in an attempt to stop lawmakers from certifying his 2020 loss.

The court’s 6-3 ruling in June requires prosecutors to show that defendants charged with obstructing an official proceeding the congressional certification of the election “impaired the availability or integrity” of documents or other records, or attempted to do so.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2024