A Virginia Police officer has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for participating in the assault on the United States Capitol, on January 6, 2021, in which a mob of supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the place to try to stop the confirmation of the election results.
This is Thomas Robertson, police officer of the city of Rocky Mount. His sentence of seven years and three months is one of the longest that has been imposed among the dozens of cases that have been opened for these events.
Robertson’s sentence is similar to the one imposed a few days ago on Guy Refitt, a Texan, who stormed the Capitol with a gun and threatened House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The Prosecutor’s Office requested eight months in prison for him, finally, the sentence has been reduced to seven years and three months, as well as another three years of supervised release, after it had been taken into account that he remained in custody for the last thirteen months.
Judge Christopher Cooper then decided to jail Robertson after he violated the conditions of his probation pending trial, after continuing to stockpile firearms and making public statements that he was ready to die in a civil war.
In April, Robertson was found guilty of the six charges with which he was accused, including assault on authority and access to a restricted area carrying a weapon, a large wooden stick that his lawyers claimed was a cane which he had been wearing since he was shot in the right thigh in 2011 while working as a private security agent in Afghanistan.
Along with Robertson, a fellow off-duty Virginia Police officer, Jacob Fracker, also traveled to Washington that morning on January 6, whose sentence will be read to him next Tuesday. He decided to cooperate with authorities and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy against authorities.
Prosecutors have asked him for a sentence of six months of probation due to the “full” cooperation he has shown during the process and which has served to secure Robertson’s conviction, CBS details.
Some 850 people have been charged with federal crimes for their actions during the Jan. 6 riot. More than 350 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors, and more than 230 already have final sentences.
