A federal judge on Friday slapped Trump supporter with one of the longest sentences handed down to date in connection with the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol,
Judge Royce C. Lamberth sentenced Capitol rioter 68-year-old Duke Edward Wilson, of Nampa, to 51 months in prison followed by 36 months of supervised probation and a fine of $2,000 for attacking multiple officers at the U.S. Capitol with a pipe on January 6.
Wilson, who wore a hat that read “CNN: FAKE NEWS” as he attacked the officers, pleaded guilty last September to assaulting, resisting or impeding officers and obstructing an official proceeding, both felonies, according to Raw Story.
Judge Lamberth said the 51-month sentence — the maximum allowed under federal sentencing guidelines — was necessary because the insurrection was “a horrible day for our country,” The Idaho Press reported. “It’s a message that the court has to send, that our country cannot deal with that.”
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During the sentencing hearing, U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell told the judge that he is still suffering from the injuries he sustained during Wilson’s attack, underwent surgeries to fuse a bone in his foot and to repair his shoulder and may need additional shoulder surgeries, the report says.
According to the FBI affidavit, Wilson charged a set of doors in the tunnel and prevented officers from closing them, and then tried to rain blows on the officers using a thin PVC pipe that he had apparently found on the ground. Gonell tried to block the pipe from hitting a fellow officer who had no helmet.
“Both my hands were bleeding at that time from blocking,” Gonell said. “He insisted on continuing to fight me to prevent us from closing that door, that would enable him and his fellow insurrectionists to advance in the tunnel and the Capitol as members of Congress and the Senate were being evacuated from the very same route.”
“I remember vividly what happened that day to me, to him,” Gonell said. “More than one year later I am still not able to put on my police uniform due to those injuries because of what he did to me and my fellow officers.”
