Man who stormed Capitol in caveman costume gets prison

A New York Metropolis decide’s son who stormed the U.S. Capitol wearing a furry “caveman” costume was sentenced on Friday to eight months in jail.

U.S. District Choose James Boasberg said Aaron Mostofsky was “actually on the front lines” of the mob’s assault on Jan. 6, 2021.

“What you and others did on that day imposed an indelible stain on how our nation is perceived, each at dwelling and abroad, and that can’t be undone,” the choose instructed Mostofsky, 35.

Boasberg also sentenced Mostofsky to 1 12 months of supervised launch and ordered him to carry out 200 hours of neighborhood service and pay $2,000 in restitution.

Mostofsky had asked the judge for mercy, saying he was ashamed of his “contribution to the chaos of that day.”

“I feel sorry for the officers that had to cope with that chaos,” stated Mostofsky, who should report to prison in roughly one month.

Mostofsky was carrying a walking stick and wearing a furry costume when he joined the mob that attacked the Capitol. He told a pal that the costume expressed his belief that “even a caveman” would know that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

Additionally on Friday, a federal choose agreed to postpone a trial in July for members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group charged with conspiring to forcefully halt the peaceable switch of energy after President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

A primary jury trial for five of nine Oath Keepers members charged with seditious conspiracy, including group founder Stewart Rhodes, is now scheduled to start on Sept. 26 and is expected to last a couple of month. A second trial for the other 4 defendants is scheduled to begin on Nov. 29.

U.S. District Decide Amit Mehta agreed to present protection attorneys extra time to prepare for trial but indicated that he isn’t inclined to grant another delay. A number of defense attorneys expressed concern in regards to the doable impression if a congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot releases its report across the same time as the primary trial. Mehta said that wouldn’t be a motive for one more delay, “even if 435 members of Congress start studying from the report on the courthouse steps.”

Greater than 780 individuals have been charged with federal crimes associated to the Capitol riot. Over 280 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors.

A Tennessee man, Albuquerque Head, pleaded guilty on Friday to assaulting Metropolitan Police Department Officer Michael Fanone. Head pulled Fanone right into a crowd of rioters who beat him, shocked him with a stun gun and stole his badge and police radio. An Iowa man, Kyle Young, pleaded guilty on Thursday to assaulting Fanone, who was seriously injured by rioters and has since testified before Congress concerning the attack.

Greater than 160 defendants have been sentenced, together with over 60 who have been sentenced to phrases of imprisonment ranging from 14 days to five years and three months.

In Mostofsky’s case, federal sentencing pointers recommended a jail sentence ranging from 10 months to 16 months. Prosecutors really helpful a sentence of 15 months in jail followed by three years of supervised launch.

Mostofsky was one of the first rioters to enter the restricted area across the Capitol and among the first to breach the constructing itself, by means of the Senate Wing doors, in response to prosecutors. He pushed in opposition to a police barrier that officers had been making an attempt to move and stole a Capitol Police bulletproof vest and riot defend, prosecutors stated.

“Mostofsky cheered on different rioters as they clashed with police exterior the Capitol building, even celebrating with a fist-bump to one in every of his fellow rioters,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

Contained in the constructing, Mostofsky followed rioters who chased Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up a staircase toward the Senate chambers. He took the police vest and defend with him when he left the Capitol, about 20 minutes after entering.

Mostofsky often wears costumes at occasions, in accordance with his lawyers.

“To place the matter with understatement, the New Yorker is quirky even by the requirements of his residence metropolis,” they wrote.

A New York Post reporter interviewed him inside the Capitol in the course of the riot. He advised the reporter that he stormed the Capitol as a result of “the election was stolen.”

Mostofsky has labored as an assistant architect in New York. His father, Steven Mostofsky, is a state courtroom choose in Brooklyn.

“The fact that his father is a choose means that he ought to have been higher able than different defendants to grasp why the claims of election fraud were false,” stated Justice Division prosecutor Michael Romano.

Boasberg said none of the supportive letters submitted by Mostofsky’s family and mates explain how he “went down this rabbit gap of election fantasy.”

“I hope at this level you perceive that your indulgence in that fantasy has led to this tragic situation,” the decide added.

Aaron Mostofsky pleaded guilty in February to a felony cost of civil dysfunction and misdemeanor prices of theft of government property and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds. Mostofsky was the primary Capitol rioter to be sentenced for a civil dysfunction conviction.

Mostofsky’s lawyers asked for a sentence of house confinement, probation and community service. Protection legal professional Nicholas Smith described Mostofsky as a “spectator” who “drifted with the group” and didn’t go to the Capitol to interfere with the peaceable transfer of power.

“He did issues he should not have achieved,” Smith stated. “However there’s a giant difference between an ideologue who is motivated to commit violence and someone who finally ends up doing bad things when they find” themselves in a crowd.