‘Pizzagate’ gunman in D.C. is sentenced to 4 years in prison Navy sailors made tough call to seal destroyer’s flooding compartments
Federal judge says it was ‘sheer luck’ no one was injured in the Dec.4 incident It was unclear at the time of collision if survivors were inside
Washington — An online conspiracy theory dubbed “pizzagate” ended Thursday with real-world consequences when a North Carolina man was sentenced to prison for arming himself with an assault rifle, traveling to the nation’s capital and firing his weapon inside a neighborhood pizza restaurant.
Edgar Maddison Welch’s “ill-conceived plot” last year did “actual damage to the lives of real people,” a judge said before sentencing him to four years in prison.
Judge Ketanji B. Jackson said she’d never seen a case like Welch’s, and she gave him a punishment on the upper end of guidelines, in part to send a message to others. If Welch believed an internet conspiracy theory that children were being harmed at the restaurant, he should have notified law enforcement, not attempted to take the law into his own hands, the judge said during Thursday’s hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington.
Jackson said it was “sheer luck” that no one was physically injured when Welch entered Washington’s Comet Ping Pong restaurant on Dec. 4 armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and a revolver. He was there just about a month after the election of President Donald Trump to investigate unfounded internet rumors about prominent Democrats harboring child sex slaves at the restaurant.
As diners and staff fled, leaving half-eaten pizza and cups of soda, Welch went through the restaurant. At one point, he fired his AR-15 at a locked closet, but he discovered there were no children being held in the restaurant and surrendered peacefully.
Welch’s sentence was just below the 4 ½ years prosecutors sought and above the 1 ½ years Welch’s attorney asked for.
During the hearing, the 29-year-old Welch spoke briefly to apologize, saying he realized that his words “cannot undo or change what already happened.” In a letter filed with the court, he wrote that he is “truly sorry for endangering the safety of any and all bystanders who were present that day,” but he didn’t talk about the conspiracy theory that motivated him to act, saying just that he came to Washington “with the intent of helping people I believed were in dire need of assistance.”
On Thursday, he sat quietly in an orange jail jumpsuit throughout most of the hearing as his mother, father, sister and fiancée sat in the front of the courtroom.
Welch’s attorney, Dani Jahn, said that Welch’s actions were “reckless” and “misguided,” but she said Welch, a father and former emergency medical technician, had acted with the intent of defending children.
Welch, who is from Salisbury, N.C., pleaded guilty in March to interstate transportation of a firearm and ammunition and assault with a dangerous weapon. Though the rumors he went to investigate were unfounded, they have upended the lives of those who worked in the restaurant.
The restaurant’s owner, James Alefantis, said in court that the “viscous web of lies” about his business has been traumatic for him and his staff. He still needs security there, he said, and has suffered both emotionally and financially. In letters to the judge and in court, employees described the terror of Welch’s actions, with some saying they have depression and nightmares and need trauma counseling.
But Alefantis also said he is hopeful.
“I am hopeful that those who provoke fear, traffic in lies and perpetuate conspiracy will awake to the tangible harms that result from their actions,” he said in court. “I am hopeful that one day reason will prevail before a shot rings out again in a place of warmth and love and communal gathering.”
With water rushing around them, sailors aboard the beleaguered USS Fitzgerald faced an agonizing decision.
They had made several rescue attempts into the flooded portions of the 505-foot destroyer, which had collided off the coast of Japan with a much heavier container ship early morning Saturday. But they didn’t know how many of their fellow shipmates were still trapped inside or even alive, and time was running out.
The sailors either had to close off the flooded areas of the ship, or they feared the entire destroyer might go down, according to three active or former members of the Navy familiar with the incident.
They decided to seal the compartments shut.
By Sunday, the toll of the accident became clear. The bodies of seven drowned sailors were pulled from the areas of the ship that had been cut off. It is not yet clear whether the sailors had already died by the time their shipmates decided to contain the flooding — and it may never be known.
“They were in a situation where they had to make tough choices,” said one member of the Navy with knowledge of the crisis, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.
The worst Navy accident in recent memory is now the subject of multiple investigations by the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, as well as the Japanese Coast Guard and Transportation Board. Investigators are probing how an agile U.S. warship, capable of speeds of more than 30 mph, loaded with nearly 300 crew members and equipped with some of the most advanced sensors in the world, managed to collide with a lumbering container ship.
In coming days, the Navy will download data from the Fitzgerald’s Aegis Weapons Systems to help investigators with the reconstruction of the incident, according to Navy documents provided to The Washington Post. The crew from both ships will be interviewed, while the “black box” of the container ship will likely be examined.
Adm. John Richardson, the Navy’s top admiral, said in a statement Thursday that he and Master Chief Petty Officer Steven Giordano, the top enlisted sailor, were in Japan on Tuesday for the transfer of remains from the Fitzgerald to planes that will take them home. The two Navy leaders were struck by stories of heroism and sacrifice, both by the sailors aboard and their families back home.
“Our immediate focus is to do all we can to properly recognize our fallen shipmates, take care of the FITZ family, and begin to put the ship back together,” Richardson’s statement said. “Our goal is to learn all we can to prevent future accidents from occurring.”