Rioter to serve 8 months for role in Capitol breach
A Florida man who breached the U.S. Senate chamber carrying a Trump campaign flag was sentenced Monday to eight months behind bars, the first resolution for a felony case in the Capitol insurrection.
Paul Allard Hodgkins, 38, apologized and said he was ashamed of his actions on Jan 6. Speaking calmly from a prepared text, he described being caught up in the euphoria as he followed a crowd of hundreds into the Capitol.
“If I had any idea that the protest ... would escalate (the way) it did ... I would never have ventured farther than the sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue,” Hodgkins told the judge. “This was a foolish decision on my part.”
Prosecutors had asked for Hodgkins to serve 18 months behind bars, saying in a recent filing that he “contributed to the collective threat to democracy” by forcing lawmakers to temporarily abandon their certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over President Donald Trump and to scramble for shelter from incoming mobs.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington said Hodgkins had played a role, if not as significant as others, in one of the worst episodes in American history. Still he chose to give Hodgkins the lesser sentence of 8 months in prison.
“That was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a protest,” Moss said. “It was an assault on democracy.”
The sentencing could set the bar for punishments of hundreds of other defendants as they decide whether to accept plea deals or go to trial. Hodgkins and others are accused of serious crimes but were not indicted, as some others were, for roles in larger conspiracies.
Under an agreement with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty last month to one count of obstructing an official proceeding, which carries a maximum 20year prison sentence. In exchange, prosecutors agreed to drop lesser charges, including entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct.
Separately on Monday, Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys who was arrested in Washington two days before the insurrection, pleaded guilty to burning a Black Lives Matter banner that was torn down from a historic Black church in December.
He also pleaded guilty to attempted possession of a largecapacity ammunition feeding device after police found two highcapacity firearm magazines when he was arrested.