WASHINGTON — A former D.C. bartender and Proud Boy who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was sentenced to 55 months in federal jail on Monday.
Joshua Pruitt, 40, pleaded guilty in June to obstruction of an official continuing after he was caught on video becoming a member of a mob pursuing cops and smashing an indication contained in the U.S. Capitol. Two U.S. Capitol Law enforcement officials wrote sufferer influence statements in his case urging Choose Timothy J. Kelly to present Pruitt a extreme sentence within the case.
In the end, Kelly imposed a sentence that fell just a few months wanting the 5 years that prosecutors had requested.
standing on a Black Lives Matter banner.U.S. District Court docket for the District of Columbia
Pruitt mentioned that he apologized for his actions and he was “not glad that Jan. 6 occurred in any respect,” however mentioned he nonetheless held onto his beliefs that Donald Trump truly gained the election that he misplaced to President Joe Biden.“I did imagine the election was stolen. I nonetheless do,” Pruitt mentioned, talking from a lectern additional away from the choose, which was arrange for defendants who’re vaccinated for Covid.
“I broke the regulation, backside line, no matter whether or not I’m proper or flawed on my emotions,” Pruitt mentioned.
Robert Lee Jenkins, Jr., a court-appointed lawyer for Pruitt, mentioned outdoors the courtroom that there was no convincing Pruitt in any other case.
“We have had many conversations about it, and Mr. Pruitt is agency in his perception,” Jenkins mentioned in response to a query from NBC Information. Jenkins mentioned that Pruitt’s household was “extraordinarily dismayed” that Pruitt had gotten himself concerned in Jan. 6.
Choose Kelly and Pruitt’s personal lawyer mentioned that alcohol performed a task in Pruitt’s behaviors on Jan. 6, although a federal prosecutor identified that Pruitt’s actions on the Capitol would’ve come about six hours after he mentioned he was consuming Jack Daniel’s on the morning of Jan. 6. Pruitt’s lawyer mentioned the Pruitt had an alcohol drawback, even when he wasn’t keen to confess it himself.
Jenkins mentioned that the opposite members of the D.C.-Maryland Proud Boys chapter, whose texts have been discovered on Pruitt’s telephone, needs to be involved that they could possibly be prosecuted.
Among the texts, which have been beforehand launched in courtroom paperwork, included discussion of plans to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and about “storming” the Capitol steps and surrounding the constructing.
“I feel [they] needs to be very involved,” Jenkins mentioned. “Very, very involved.”
Pruitt came within close distance of Sen. Chuck Schumer on Jan. 6, sending the New York Democrat and his safety crew working within the different course.
A member of Schumer’s Capitol Police safety crew wrote about their near-meeting with Pruitt in his sufferer influence assertion. “Every single day I enter the beacon of our nation, the U.S. Capitol, I relive the recollections of that day, and none are as impactful because the moments I noticed Mr. Pruitt approaching us with the intent to inflict hurt to the Majority Chief,” the officer wrote. “It was solely resulting from our groups’ preplanning of alternate evacuations procedures and fast actions that this impending assembly didn’t lead to blood shed or critical bodily damage.”
Pruitt advised the choose that it was “in dangerous style” for him to throw a picket signal within the Capitol, however Kelly mentioned it “was much more than being in dangerous style.”
Kelly mentioned it was “extraordinarily troubling” that Pruitt did not specific remorse for his actions throughout media interviews earlier than he pleaded responsible.
“There was nothing patriotic about what occurred that day, removed from it,” Kelly mentioned. “It was a nationwide shame.”
