The primary rioter to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced Tuesday to greater than 4 years in jail, federal prosecutors introduced.
In March, a federal jury pleaded guilty to felony counts of Michael Sparks, 47, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky of obstruction of an official continuing and civil dysfunction and several other misdemeanor counts for being on Capitol grounds on January 6.
On Tuesday, Choose Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Courtroom in Washington sentenced him to 53 months in prison and ordered him to pay a $2,000 tremendous. Mr. Sparks can be on supervised launch for 3 years after his jail sentence ends, prosecutors mentioned.
Video footage offered in courtroom confirmed that Mr. Sparks entered the Capitol constructing at 2:13 p.m. on Jan. 6 by way of a window close to a door resulting in the Senate wing that rioters had damaged down with a police defend.
Mr. Sparks was among the many first group of rioters who confronted Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who helped contain the crowd to succeed in members of Congress.
The rioters chased Mr. Goodman up a staircase as they demanded to know the place Congress would certify the election outcomes, prosecutors mentioned.
On the high of the steps, Mr. Goodman and different officers confronted the agitated crowd, prosecutors mentioned, together with Mr. Sparks, who shouted “That is our America!” on the officers.
In courtroom, Mr. Sparks’ lawyer, Scott T. Wendelsdorf, argued at sentencing that the deal with his consumer’s standing as the primary to enter the Capitol was misplaced and that what actually mattered was “how lengthy he was there and what he did inside.”
In a sentencing memo asking the decide for a sentence of 1 12 months of home arrest adopted by three years of supervised launch, Mr. Wendelsdorf tried to tell apart his consumer’s actions from the violent acts of different rioters. Wendelsdorf famous that Mr. Sparks by no means assaulted or threatened an officer and that he left the Capitol constructing 20 minutes after coming into it.
“Michael Sparks could have began the sport, the federal government alleges, however he was out of the sport on the sidelines earlier than the top of the primary quarter,” Wendelsdorf mentioned on the trial in March.
Prosecutors had requested Choose Kelly to condemn Mr. Sparks to 57 months in jail — 4 months longer than the sentence he finally acquired — and three years of supervised launch.
Mr. Sparks’ pressured entry, they mentioned in a condemnation memo, instantly triggered “the pressured interruption of the 2020 Electoral Faculty vote depend and threatened the peaceable switch of energy following the 2020 presidential election.”
Choose Kelly’s opinion seems to help that characterization. The decide mentioned Tuesday that there was no denying that Mr. Sparks’ entry would have “an encouraging and emboldening impact on all those that have been even within the neighborhood,” based on The Related Press.
“To say that this was not a major and key aspect within the mob’s seize of the Capitol is, for my part, to disregard the apparent,” the decide added. According to the AP
In the course of the trial, the prosecution additionally centered on feedback Sparks made on social media within the days main as much as Jan. 6, together with a submit on the social media web site Parler calling for a civil conflict. He additionally posted a Fb message three days earlier than the Capitol breach, prosecutors mentioned.
“It’s time to kick them out of Congress,” he wrote in a single message. “That is tyranny.”
Mr. Sparks, who labored in a supervisory capability at a plant in Cecilia, Kentucky, turned himself in to authorities on January 19, 2021.
He didn’t testify at trial, however Mr. Sparks submitted a letter earlier than his sentencing during which he mentioned certainly one of his solely regrets was that the occasions of January 6 “didn’t change something.”
On Tuesday, he reiterated earlier than Choose Kelly that he nonetheless believes the false declare that the 2020 election was “fully hidden from the American public,” the AP reported.
Messages to Mr. Sparks’ lawyer Tuesday night time weren’t instantly answered.
Mr. Sparks is the most recent to be convicted of greater than 1,300 individuals charged by the Justice Division in reference to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
