Michael Sparks, who was the first defendant to breach the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced to 53 months in prison Tuesday for felony and misdemeanor charges.
U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly warned that the assault on the Capitol has created uncertainty around how America will conduct its next transfer of power after the 2024 presidential election.
Sparks, 46, was convicted by a jury in March of felony obstruction of an official proceeding and civil disorder and misdemeanors — including disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building.
Video from inside the Capitol showed him entering through a window and jumping to the floor at around 2:13 p.m. that day, according to the Justice Department.
A prosecutor described the choice by a U.S. Capitol police sergeant who saw Sparks enter the smashed window not to shoot at him. He "could've drawn his weapon," the government said, "but that would've led to a bloodbath ... he protected the rioters, too." The sergeant testified powerfully about his decision not to fire. He told the court about the trauma of the riot, the suicides of his colleagues and the "fragility of democracy" at this moment.
Surveillance video shows Sparks, after he entered the Capitol, then joined a group of men and chased Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman up a flight of stairs and at one point, he confronted him, yelling, "This is our America!"
Prosecutors told the court at his sentencing that before the Jan. 6 riot, Sparks had written, "I believe in the constitution so I'll die f[o]r it. Trump is my president."
They alleged that Sparks tried to cover his tracks: "Only after he knew he was about to be arrested did Sparks take action — not to cancel his account or change the privacy settings to dissuade strangers from making contact, but to permanently delete" his posts.
When prosecutors and the judge cited some of Sparks' pre-Jan 6 social media posts, his defense argued that it was "just hyperbole" and "just angry words."
This was Sparks' caption of a side-by-side photo of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: "How about we the people drag you out by the face[?]"
Sparks' lawyer argued that his posts were no worse than tweets from some members of Congress. And he cited former President Donald Trump, who he said "coined the term '2nd Amendment solution' about Hillary Clinton."
Sparks' attorneys asked for 12 months home detention. They argued the crowd was formed at "Trump's behest" and cited the ongoing denial of 2020 election results. And they said that while Sparks technically entered Capitol first, he was not a leader of the mob.
Before he traveled to the Capitol from his home in Kentucky, according to the government, Sparks had written on the social media site Parler, "We want a civil war to be clear," and he posted on Facebook on Jan. 3, 2021, "It's time to drag them out of Congress. It's tyranny[.]" He also said he had given up on democracy.
Sparks was arrested by the FBI in Kentucky on Jan. 19, 2021.
Robert Legare contributed to this report.
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