A federal judge in Washington has sentenced Capitol rioter Nicholas Languerand to nearly four years in prison after he pleaded guilty to assaulting officers. Languerand, a fervent Trump supporter and Q-Anon fanatic, faced a maximum of 20-years sentence, but prosecutors asked the court to sentence Languerand to 51 months after his guilty plea. Languerand was also ordered to pay restitution of $2,000 to the architect of the Capitol, CBS News reported.
The sentence from Judge John Bates is one of the harshest handed down to a January 6 defendant yet. Robert Palmer, another man accused of assaulting an officer, received 63 months.
“The defendant engaged in, and pleaded guilty to, an extremely dangerous offense,” Bates said, according to the report. “It strikes at the very heart of the democratic rule of law.”
Languerand’s defense attorney William Welch, however, painted a more sympathetic picture of the defendant, asking Judge Bates to impose a light sentence because the defendant’s life has not been easy, arguing his past that should be taken into account at sentencing.
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Welch told the judge that Languerand was “a child of addicts” and that his father had tried to kill his mother and that he was subjected to seemingly constant relocation during his school-age years, according to the report. But the judge was not buying it.
“Whatever difficulties the defendant faced as a child, it’s clear he overcame those difficulties, he got his high school diploma, he was accepted into the military, he functioned well before his [military] discharge, and he’s maintained employment,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Juman said, anticipating the defense’s arguments, “A defendant’s difficult childhood does not explain his choice to engage in violence on January 6th.”
