An ex-NYPD officer convicted of attacking police on the Capitol on Jan. 6 says he partly blames his actions on “flashbacks” from his previous years working as a cop within the Bronx.
Thomas Webster, 56, was found guilty in May after a jury did not purchase his story that he was appearing in self-defense and making an attempt to assist an officer “see my palms” when he grabbed the officer’s face masks after he swung a flag on the officer after which charged by a police barricade and tackled the officer to the bottom.
Video exhibits Webster, in a vibrant pink jacket, charging officers, together with DC Metropolitan Police officer Noah Rathbun, on the decrease West Terrace of the US Capitol. Rathbun testified that he struggled to breathe when Webster grabbed his masks as a result of the strap was chopping off his oxygen.
Federal prosecutors are seeking what can be the longest sentence in a Jan. 6 case thus far — 210 months, or 17.5 years, in federal jail — forward of Webster’s sentencing on Thursday.
His attorneys are seeking a downward departure from the sentencing pointers in his case. In a letter they filed in search of a decrease sentence, Webster informed a psychologist that he may make a connection between his violent actions on the Capitol to a previous battle with an armed robber within the Bronx who was attempting to get his gun. Webster informed the psychologist he attacked a Capitol Police officer with a metallic flagpole as a result of “at that second, I had flashbacks of the battle we had on the staircase.”
Webster is seen and heard on video shouting and swearing at uniformed officers on Jan. 6. The video then exhibits him swinging a metallic pole and slamming it onto the bike racks getting used to attempt to maintain the gang at bay. Officer Rathbun managed to pry the pole away, however video captured Webster pushing by the police line. He’s seen attacking the officer and pulling at his facemask. Throughout his trial in Could, Mr. Webster testified that he was merely attempting to guard himself from a “rogue cop,” and his lawyer claims that he confirmed “restraint” that day.
However the jury noticed video and convicted Webster on 6 counts — 4 of which embody use of a lethal or harmful weapon.
Included in his pre-sentencing submission is a psychological analysis by a psychiatrist, Dr. Shahla Gorovoy. She writes Webster attacked the officer partly because of childhood experiences and PTSD from 20 years as an NYPD officer. Along with working within the Bronx, as an NYPD officer, the daddy of three had additionally served on a safety element out of Metropolis Corridor.
In keeping with her letter, Dr. Gorovoy says Mr. Webster spoke about one traumatic occasion throughout his time as an NYPD officer. He stated he had endured a “violent battle” with an armed robber within the Bronx who was attempting to get his gun. Webster stated he was injured within the incident and needed to be taken to the hospital. She added, “Mr. Webster was capable of join the January 6 occasion to the incident he skilled” through the battle with the robber by “attempting to indicate the officer my palms so he is aware of I’m not armed, or I received’t go for his gun; as a result of I do know as a police officer, your first concern is that the individual might go in your gun.”
Within the letter, Dr. Gorovoy added Mr. Webster now has remorse and regret, that he “wished he had stayed house that day” and now “understands violence isn’t acceptable.”
And it seems Webster blames leaders who referred to as the gang to the Capitol — with out naming former President Trump by identify.
“The very fact stays that [Mr. Webster] and others had been referred to as to Washington, DC by an elected official. Individuals like Mr. Webster had been informed lies, fed falsehood and informed that our election was stolen when it clearly was not,” his lawyer James Monroe writes.
Webster’s lawyer went on so as to add, “Defendant is now not below any phantasm that the 2020 election was stolen or that he was preventing for a simply trigger.”
Greater than 850 individuals have been arrested in reference to the Jan. 6 assault, with hundreds more arrests yet to come. In extra of 350 defendants have pleaded responsible in reference to the riot.
The primary eight Jan. 6 defendants to face a jury trial — Guy Reffitt, Thomas Robertson, Dustin Thompson, Thomas Webster, Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, Anthony Robert Williams, Matthew Bledsoe, and Erik Herrera — had been convicted on each rely they confronted. A number of different defendants have been convicted by judges throughout bench trials, and only one defendant was totally acquitted.
