A QAnon conspiracy theorist who led a pack of Donald Trump supporters that chased a solitary police officer across the US Capitol on the day of the January 6 assault has been discovered responsible of a number of felonies.
Douglas Jensen – the bearded 43-year-old Iowa man who appeared in a number of media photographs of the assault whereas carrying a black T-shirt with a big “Q” – might in idea face greater than 50 years in jail after a federal jury in Washington DC convicted him on Friday, US justice division prosecutors stated in an announcement.
Nonetheless, it’s uncommon for convicts in US district court docket to obtain the harshest obtainable punishment, even when they selected to face up to trial relatively than plead responsible prematurely. And the harshest sentence handed out up to now to anybody discovered responsible of getting a job within the lethal Capitol assault has been seven years and three months.
Prosecutors alleged that Jensen fashioned a part of the mob of Trump supporters who gathered on the Capitol on the day in early 2021 that Congress was assembly to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump within the earlier 12 months’s presidential election.
Clad in a navy blue knit cap and the T-shirt paying homage to QAnon, the conspiracy delusion that Trump is locked in secret fight towards a cabal of leftist pedophiles and its deep state allies, Jensen scaled a wall on the Capitol, watched as fellow mob members broke the Senate wing entrance’s home windows and doorways, and was among the many first 10 folks to invade the ability, based on prosecutors.
Jensen went round a couple of corners and joined a crowd that encountered a lone Capitol police officer close to a stairwell, prosecutors stated. Jensen squeezed his technique to the entrance of the group, primarily got here nose to nose with the officer, Eugene Goodman, and helped chase him up the steps to a hallway simply outdoors the Senate chamber.
Prosecutors stated that Jensen – carrying a knife with a three-inch blade in his pocket – barked at Goodman in addition to different officers to “again up” and ordered them to arrest Trump’s vice-president, Mike Pence, whom the mob was threatening to hold if he didn’t halt the certification of Biden’s electoral faculty win.
After 40 minutes, Jensen was made to exit, briefly re-entered one other part of the Capitol and was pressured out once more, prosecutors stated.
Authorities arrested him two days later, after he returned to Iowa.
At Jensen’s trial, concluding Friday, his protection legal professional portrayed him as “a very confused man” whose thoughts was much more twisted by QAnon in addition to Covid lockdowns. Jensen’s legal professional additionally claimed his consumer had by no means bodily damage anybody throughout his time on the Capitol.
However jurors wanted simply 4 hours to convict Jensen as charged of assaulting police, obstructing a congressional continuing, interfering with regulation enforcement, getting into a restricted constructing and disorderly conduct with a harmful weapon, that are all felonies.
Jensen was additionally discovered responsible of a pair of misdemeanors: picketing within the Capitol and disorderly conduct in that facility.
Goodman testified throughout Jensen’s trial, describing how he had felt cornered and threatened by the mob. Prosecutors confirmed video of Goodman main the mob away from the Senate ground whereas defensively holding up a baton with one in every of his arms.
The Senate awarded Goodman a congressional Gold Medal, saying that the officer had led the violent mob away from lawmakers who in the end did certify Trump’s defeat within the 2020 election.
A bipartisan Senate report linked seven deaths to the Capitol assault and stated it had left greater than 140 cops injured. As of this week, greater than 870 folks had been charged with roles within the rebel.
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