The former Maine butcher whom federal prosecutors said was among “the most violent and aggressive” of the U.S. Capitol rioters got more than seven years in prison on Thursday.
It was a harsh penalty for the first of the seven Mainers to be charged in the riots in which supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the building on Jan. 6, 2021, while members of Congress worked to certify President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
Kyle Fitzsimons, 39, of Lebanon, was charged less than a month after the riots, and the news was accompanied by photos of his bloodied face. He wore a butcher coat and a fur pelt while carrying an unstrung bow. He held racist political views, telling lawmakers in 2018 that he moved to Maine to escape the “multi-cultural hellholes” of Rhode Island and New York.
Federal prosecutors said he carried out five assaults on police in the Capitol in less than five minutes, including one that ended the career of retired Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell after Fitzsimons wrenched his shoulder, according to charging documents. He also pulled the gas mask from one officer’s face and tried to pull a fallen one into the mob, prosecutors said.
A judge convicted Fitzsimons on seven felony charges and four misdemeanors last year, and his sentencing was delayed in June. U.S. District Court judge Rudy Contreras sentenced him to 87 months, or just over seven years, in prison in a Washington, D.C. court on Thursday, according to a CBS News reporter covering the trial. He has already served 2 1/2 years.
It came after the government sought a 15-year sentence on charges that added up to a maximum sentence of 90 years in prison. In court, Fitzsimons tearfully said that he failed to uphold the ideals of the Founding Fathers while Gonell argued for a maximum sentence, according to the CBS News reporter’s account.
“Please don’t desecrate my sacrifice,” the officer told the judge. “He wasn’t demonstrating leniency when he was attacking me.”
The sentence stands out nationally. More than 1,000 people related to the riot have been charged either federally or locally in Washington, according to an NPR count as of March. Roughly 58 percent of people got prison time, and just a few have gotten lengthier sentences than Fitzsimons did.
Among them are Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers, who got 18 years in the longest sentence handed down so far. Prosecutors portrayed him as an organizer of the riot after he discussed the prospect of a “bloody” civil war over the election outcome.
Days after the riot, Fitzsimons gave an interview to a New Hampshire website in which he repeated elements of Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen from him. He said he was carrying the unstrung bow as a symbol of peaceful intent, but that he was pushed to the front of the crowd and was clubbed by police. His head wound needed stitches.
“I was pressed into the front two times … the only way out was to get hit by police or pepper sprayed,” he said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of Capitol rioters who have gotten prison time. It is 58 percent.