Man who stormed Capitol in caveman costume will get jail

A New York Metropolis choose’s son who stormed the U.S. Capitol carrying a furry “caveman” costume was sentenced on Friday to eight months in prison.

U.S. District Decide James Boasberg said Aaron Mostofsky was “actually on the entrance traces” of the mob’s assault on Jan. 6, 2021.

“What you and others did on that day imposed an indelible stain on how our nation is perceived, each at home and overseas, and that may’t be undone,” the decide advised Mostofsky, 35.

Boasberg additionally sentenced Mostofsky to at least one yr of supervised launch and ordered him to perform 200 hours of neighborhood service and pay $2,000 in restitution.

Mostofsky had asked the choose for mercy, saying he was ashamed of his “contribution to the chaos of that day.”

“I feel sorry for the officers that had to take care of that chaos,” mentioned Mostofsky, who must report back to jail in roughly one month.

Mostofsky was carrying a walking stick and dressed in a furry costume when he joined the mob that attacked the Capitol. He told a good friend that the costume expressed his perception that “even a caveman” would know that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

Additionally on Friday, a federal judge agreed to postpone a trial in July for members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group charged with conspiring to forcefully halt the peaceable switch of energy after President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

A primary jury trial for five of 9 Oath Keepers members charged with seditious conspiracy, including group founder Stewart Rhodes, is now scheduled to start out on Sept. 26 and is expected to last about a month. A second trial for the opposite 4 defendants is scheduled to start out on Nov. 29.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta agreed to provide protection attorneys more time to organize for trial but indicated that he isn’t inclined to grant one other delay. A few protection attorneys expressed concern about the doable impression if a congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot releases its report around the identical time as the first trial. Mehta stated that wouldn’t be a purpose for another delay, “even when 435 members of Congress begin reading from the report on the courthouse steps.”

More than 780 folks have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Over 280 of them have pleaded guilty, principally to misdemeanors.

A Tennessee man, Albuquerque Head, pleaded responsible on Friday to assaulting Metropolitan Police Department Officer Michael Fanone. Head pulled Fanone right into a crowd of rioters who beat him, shocked him with a stun gun and stole his badge and police radio. An Iowa man, Kyle Younger, pleaded responsible on Thursday to assaulting Fanone, who was seriously injured by rioters and has since testified earlier than Congress about the attack.

Greater than 160 defendants have been sentenced, together with over 60 who have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment starting from 14 days to 5 years and three months.

In Mostofsky’s case, federal sentencing guidelines recommended a prison sentence ranging from 10 months to 16 months. Prosecutors really useful a sentence of 15 months in prison adopted by three years of supervised launch.

Mostofsky was one of the first rioters to enter the restricted space across the Capitol and among the many first to breach the building itself, by means of the Senate Wing doors, in line with prosecutors. He pushed towards a police barrier that officers were trying to move and stole a Capitol Police bulletproof vest and riot protect, prosecutors mentioned.

“Mostofsky cheered on different rioters as they clashed with police outside the Capitol constructing, even celebrating with a fist-bump to certainly one of his fellow rioters,” prosecutors wrote in a court docket submitting.

Inside the building, Mostofsky adopted rioters who chased Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up a staircase towards the Senate chambers. He took the police vest and defend with him when he left the Capitol, about 20 minutes after entering.

Mostofsky often wears costumes at events, according to his lawyers.

“To place the matter with understatement, the New Yorker is quirky even by the requirements of his residence city,” they wrote.

A New York Put up reporter interviewed him inside the Capitol through the riot. He told the reporter that he stormed the Capitol because “the election was stolen.”

Mostofsky has worked as an assistant architect in New York. His father, Steven Mostofsky, is a state court judge in Brooklyn.

“The fact that his father is a judge means that he ought to have been better able than different defendants to understand why the claims of election fraud had been false,” mentioned Justice Department prosecutor Michael Romano.

Boasberg said not one of the supportive letters submitted by Mostofsky’s family and buddies explain how he “went down this rabbit gap of election fantasy.”

“I hope at this level you understand that your indulgence in that fantasy has led to this tragic scenario,” the choose added.

Aaron Mostofsky pleaded responsible in February to a felony charge of civil dysfunction and misdemeanor prices of theft of presidency property and coming into and remaining in a restricted constructing or grounds. Mostofsky was the first Capitol rioter to be sentenced for a civil disorder conviction.

Mostofsky’s lawyers asked for a sentence of home confinement, probation and community service. Protection attorney Nicholas Smith described Mostofsky as a “spectator” who “drifted with the group” and didn’t go to the Capitol to intervene with the peaceful transfer of power.

“He did things he shouldn't have performed,” Smith mentioned. “However there’s an enormous difference between an ideologue who is motivated to commit violence and someone who finally ends up doing dangerous issues when they find” themselves in a crowd.