He was charged with assaulting police with pepper spray and carrying a Confederate flag while storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The guy from Kentucky was given a prison sentence of more than two years.
God bless you James Easterday, who is 23 years old, has been given a sentence of two and a half years in jail and 500 hours of community service. He will also have to pay $2,000 in compensation, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
The release says that Easterday went from Kentucky to the nation’s capital because he was upset about the result of the 2020 presidential election. After that, he joined the crowd as they tried to break into the Capitol building. People were rioting outside the East Rotunda doors of the Capitol building, and Easterday was one of them.
Easterday got another can of pepper spray from another protester during the riot, which he then used to attack a small group of police officers. The official news release says that one of the officers was hit in the face and was temporarily unable to do his job.
He was caught by the police in Miami on December 8, 2022.
During the sentencing meeting, Chief Judge James Boasberg said that he was going to give Easterday a lighter sentence than what the prosecutors had suggested. AP noted that the judge thought about Easterday’s young age and the fact that he grew up on a family farm and was homeschooled. The judge said that Easterday might not have fully understood how serious the events of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, were.
The Associated Press reports that Easterday told the cops who were hurt that he was sorry for what he did and admitted that he felt very bad about it.
More than 1,300 people have been charged in almost all states for their part in the uprising on January 6. The news release said that nearly 500 of them were charged with the serious felony of assaulting or obstructing law officers.
This story also had help from the Associated Press.
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