A Donald Trump supporter who assaulted D.C. police officer Mike Fanone and another officer at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Tuesday.
Kyle Young, 38, from Iowa, pleaded guilty in May to a felony count of assaulting, resisting, and impeding officers. Young admitted that he used a strobe light to disorient police, helped throw a large audio speaker at police, grabbed Fanone’s wrist when the officer was abducted by the mob, and hit another officer abducted by the mob.
Prosecutors said that Young took part in the assault at the lower west tunnel where “some of the most barbaric violence” took place on Jan. 6.
Video evidence shows that Young handed a taser to Danny Rodriguez, a MAGA fanatic who used it to electroshock Fanone in the neck. Young, trailed by his 16-year-old son, observed as Rodriguez electroshocked Fanone.
During the sentencing hearing, Young’s lawyer said his client was “injected” with lies about the 2020 election and had asked his Facebook followers to join him at the “stop the steal” rally. Young himself had previously written in a letter to Judge Amy Berman Jackson saying that he was sorry for his actions.
“I still can’t believe I let myself and my son get swept up into such terrible events,” Young wrote in a letter to the judge, adding he was “highly ashamed” and that he’ll “never do anything like that again.”
But the judge wasn’t moved by his “apology” and dropped the hammer on Young. The 86-month sentence matched what federal prosecutors sought in the case.
More than 850 people have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack and more than 350 have pleaded guilty. The longest sentence of 10 years in federal prison went to an ex-NYPD officer who assaulted a D.C. cop with a flagpole and tackled him to the ground, and then lied on the stand about his conduct. There are hundreds more arrests still to come.