Request seeks long sentence in Jan. 6 case

Arguing that a Northern California man who participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol came “prepared for violence,” prosecutors are asking a judge to impose one of the longer sentences handed down on Jan. 6 defendants.

The government is asking U.S. District Court Judge John Bates to order former Auburn, California, construction worker Sean Michael Mchugh, 35, to serve 10 years and three months in prison, pay a $73,000 fine and pay $2,000 in restitution when he is sentenced this week.

The request comes in a 44-page sentencing memorandum filed Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., where prosecutors argued that Mchugh armed himself with bear spray and a bullhorn before he traveled to the Capitol.

“During the riot, Mchugh actively participated in at least four attempts to breach perimeters established by officers during the riot,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lynnett Wagner and Carolina Nevin wrote.

Mchugh, 35, was convicted in April of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon and obstruction of an official proceeding and could face up to 20 years in prison.

His attorney argues that Mchugh should receive a sentence of only two years, which “should permit him to rejoin society in time for his son’s high school graduation.”

Attorney Joseph Allen contends in a 13-page sentencing memorandum that Mchugh was exercising his First Amendment rights and that Mchugh was swept up in the moment.

“Mr. Mchugh is not a rioter, nor is he an insurrectionist,” Allen wrote. “He is an American citizen who, like any of us could, found himself caught up in the emotion of the events of a day which began lawfully and peacefully, then dominoed into the situation in which he finds himself now.”