US court sentences Jan 6 rioter to more than seven years

Guy Reffitt, of Texas, receives the longest sentence related to the 2021 Capitol attack yet after felony convictions

An associate of the far-right Three Percenters militia has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for joining a mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and later threatening to harm his children if they reported him to the FBI, Qazet.az reports.

Guy Reffitt of Wylie, Texas, was convicted by a jury in March of five felony charges, including bringing a gun onto the Capitol grounds and obstructing an official proceeding.

US District Judge Dabney Friedrich issued a sentence of seven years and three months on Monday — the longest yet for anyone involved in the riot. To date, federal prosecutors have won convictions in all but one of 13 trials tied to the Capitol attack, which sought to keep Congress from certifying former President Donald Trump’s election loss.

Previously, the longest sentence for a January 6 case had been 63 months, but in those two cases, the defendants opted not to go to trial and to plead guilty instead.