WASHINGTON — A former navy officer who assaulted cops with a hockey stick and a pointy steel pole whereas he stormed the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Wednesday to greater than three years in jail.
Michael Joseph Foy, 33, threw the pole at police and struck officers with the hockey stick as a mob of rioters fought for management of an entrance to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Then he climbed via a damaged window and walked across the constructing.
Foy, a Marine Corps veteran from Michigan, apologized to the officers whom he assaulted — and “to my nation” — earlier than U.S. District Decide Tanya Chutkan sentenced him to a few years and 4 months of imprisonment. He additionally thanked the choose for releasing him from pretrial custody in July 2021, permitting him to discover a job and enhance his psychological well being.
“You allowed me to construct the life that I so desperately wanted after I acquired out of the Marine Corps,” he advised the choose earlier than studying his sentence.
Chutkan oversees former President Donald Trump’s election interference case in Washington, D.C. Her dealing with of the Jan. 6 riot circumstances is getting added scrutiny as she presides over Trump’s case in the identical federal courthouse.
Trump’s trial was initially set to start subsequent month, however the case has been on maintain whereas Trump appeals his claims of presidential immunity from prosecution. No new trial date has been set.
Chutkan is understood for being one of many hardest punishers of Jan. 6 rioters. In Foy’s case, nonetheless, she imposed a punishment that was over 4 years shorter than the jail sentence that prosecutors beneficial. She stated she was sentencing Foy “with a heavy coronary heart,” as a result of she has been impressed with the progress that he has made since his launch from jail.
“I need you to construct on that,” she stated. “I feel you may.”
However the choose stated she needed to punish Foy for the “horrific” violence that he engaged in through the Capitol assault.
“You took an oath to serve your nation, and also you knew higher,” she stated. “What you probably did there on January sixth was not serving your nation.”
Chutkan convicted Foy of two felonies — assaulting a police officer and obstruction of an official continuing — after a “stipulated bench trial,” which suggests the choose determined the case and not using a jury and primarily based on info that either side agreed to earlier than trial. Such trials permit defendants to keep up enchantment rights which might be waived by a responsible plea.
Prosecutors beneficial a jail sentence of eight years and one month. Foy’s attorneys requested the choose to spare Foy from serving any extra time behind bars past the 5 months that he spent in pretrial custody.
Chutkan described the prosecutors’ advice as “unreasonable” and much longer than the sentences handed right down to rioters who engaged in comparable acts of violence on Jan. 6. The choose stated she hasn’t grown numb to the violence that she routinely sees captured on video and proven in her courtroom.
“I am horrified each single time,” she stated.
Foy traveled alone from his dwelling in Wixom, Michigan, to attend Trump’s “Cease the Steal” rally close to the White Home on Jan. 6. He wore an American flag round his shoulders and carried a “TRUMP 2020” flag connected to a hockey stick.
Approaching the mouth of a tunnel on the Capitol’s Decrease West Terrace, Foy picked up a sharpened steel pole and hurled it like a spear into the physique of a police officer, who fell over.
Foy later swung his hockey stick at cops, hitting them not less than 11 instances in 16 seconds. He knocked one in all them backward and struck an injured officer who had already fallen down.
“Whereas different rioters engaged in their very own violent assaults with (pepper) spray, naked fists, gnarled sticks, stolen batons, and steel crutches, Foy’s violence was amongst probably the most vicious within the melee,” Assistant U.S. Legal professional Matthew Beckwith wrote in a courtroom submitting.
Foy’s navy background “made him extra harmful and efficient” as he assaulted police, the prosecutor argued.
“That violence was a betrayal to the nation he vowed to guard and it was directed at People who had made comparable vows to serve their nation and shield their nation’s Capital,” Beckwith wrote.
Foy served within the US. Marine Corps from 2015 till June 2020, working as a heavy gear mechanic and attaining the rank of corporal earlier than he was honorably discharged. He served as a supervisor on a North Carolina base.
Greater than 1,300 folks have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 800 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving phrases of imprisonment starting from a couple of days to 22 years.
Related Press author Alanna Durkin Richer in Boston contributed to this report.
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