- A jury found Guy Reffitt guilty on all five charges he faced from the Capitol siege on January 6.
- Reffitt's teenage son recounted at trial how his father bragged about his role in the attack.
- The 15-year sentence, if ordered, would go down as the longest to date for a Capitol rioter.
Guy Reffitt, the first Capitol rioter convicted at trial on charges stemming from the January 6, 2021 insurrection, should receive a 15-year prison sentence for his "central role" in leading a pro-Trump mob that clashed with police protecting Congress, federal prosecutors said in a court filing Friday.
A jury in Washington, DC, needed just hours in early March to find Reffitt guilty on all five charges he faced in connection with the Capitol attack, including obstruction of an official proceeding. Reffitt, of Texas, was also found guilty of entering restricted Capitol grounds with a handgun and with later threatening his children to keep them from reporting him to law enforcement.
In a 58-page court filing, federal prosecutors argued that Reffitt played a pivotal role in "overwhelming officers and showing the mob the way forward at the outset of the riot." The language echoed their description of Reffitt at his weeklong trial, where prosecutors called Reffitt the "tip of this mob's spear" and played video footage of him ascending stairs up to the Capitol in tactical gear, with fellow members of the pro-Trump mob following him.
If ordered, the 15-year sentence would go down as the longest prison term given to a Capitol rioter to date, nearly tripling the more than 5-year sentence Robert Scott Palmer received after throwing a fire extinguisher at police during the January 6 attack.
This is a developing story.