Washington – New Jersey man who admitted to spraying a Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick With pepper spray during the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack He was sentenced to 80 months in prison Friday in a Washington, D.C. courtroom packed with Sicknick’s colleagues and fellow officers.
“I don’t know what hit you,” said Federal Judge Thomas Hogan, when imposing a one-year prison sentence on Julian Khater, “in a way you were determined to make your way through the crowd.”
Hogan also fined Khater $10,000.
scenic Died of natural causes A day after the Capitol was defended during the Jan. 6 attack, the D.C. medical examiner’s office announced last year. He had suffered two strokes, with the coroner’s report summary noting “acute brainstem and cerebellar infarction due to acute basilar artery thrombosis”.
Friday’s sentencing hearing drew buses of other Capitol police officers who wanted to honor their fallen colleague.
According to court documents and Julian Khater’s plea agreement, he and defendant George Tanios — who pleaded guilty to lesser charges — traveled to Washington, D.C., from West Virginia to attend the former. President Donald Trump’s march In the Ellipse White House.
The couple moved from the assembly grounds toward the Capitol, though investigators said they uncovered no evidence that the men planned to riot that day.
The government’s pre-sentencing memorandum alleged, “Surveillance video shows Khater reaching inside Tanios’ backpack and retrieving one of the chemical spray canisters they brought to Washington,” and described Khater as angry, emotional, and out of control.
After he made his way to the front of the mob on the Capitol’s Lower West Side, prosecutors said Khater directed pepper spray at a row of officers.
Ministry of Justice
The government wrote that “Khatir’s attack, in conjunction with attacks from hundreds of other rioters, collapsed the police line,” and that “Khatir’s first victim was U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.”
Bodycam and surveillance video footage reviewed by CBS News and photos included in court documents show Sicknick’s reaction to being nagged, bounced, and cleaned the area to wipe his eyes and clean his face. The videos showed that other officers were hit by Khater’s pepper spray and tried to protect themselves from its effects.
Neither Khater nor Tanios have been charged in Seknik’s murder.
Ministry of Justice
The prosecution urged the judge to sentence Khater to 90 months in prison. Prosecutors wrote: “While Julian Khater’s attack with spray gun on Officer Sicknick was ultimately not the proximate cause of his death, Sicknick’s office’s tragic death, so close to the shocking events that day underscores the seriousness The crime committed by Khater and his fellow rioters.”
He “committed a cowardly and willful assault on at least three uniformed law enforcement officers,” the government said during Friday’s proceedings, and showed the court video of Khater’s various actions during the attack.
And although Khater did not enter the Capitol himself that day, the government told Hogan that he was a vital part of the mobsters that broke down barricades and “allowed” the breach of the Capitol.
Khater – who has been imprisoned since his arrest in March 2021 – asked for leniency, and his lawyers wrote before sentencing that he “felt real remorse for his behavior.”
Khater’s defense team described his client as a kind and gentle person who immersed himself in the mob mentality prevailing at the time, and said that he traveled with Tanios to the country’s capital for the sole purpose of attending Trump’s rally. They said Tanios had only brought the chemical spray used in the attack to defend them against potential violence that day, not the attack.
Khater’s unfortunate actions, they wrote, “were indeed isolated and not part of some coordinated effort.”
Hogan was asked by his defense team to serve a prison sentence, citing in legal briefs what they described as suboptimal and inhumane conditions in detention that included poor food and sleep deprivation.
Khater’s defense attorney told the court on Friday that “the behavior in this case does not define him” and cited his client’s history of anxiety and depression.
The defense argued Friday that “despite some exaggeration and rhetoric, Mr. Khater did not directly or indirectly” lead to Sicknick’s death.
Khater himself also spoke briefly on Friday, describing the past two years as humbling, but “painful”.
He told the judge, “I can assure you, what happened that day was not in my nature…it will not happen again.”
Hogan noted that he did not hear any grief or remorse from Khatr for what he had done to the officers that day. Khater responded that he had avoided doing so due to an ongoing civil case in the matter.
His lawyers wrote that he “fully acknowledges the illegality of his conduct and the immensity of January 6”.
Prior to sentencing, Siknik’s mother and siblings submitted letters to the court, describing their feelings of anger towards Khater. They also spoke emotionally in court on Friday about their loss.
Sicknick’s mother, Gladys, wrote, “You attacked my son as if he were an animal; you animal, Mr. Khatir, should have known better… In this great country, we go to the voting booth to make a difference. We don’t start an armed insurrection, no matter what.” Considering that the boss encouraged you to “fight like hell”.
Wearing her deceased son’s T-shirt, Gladys Sicknick addressed Khater during Friday’s session. She said emotionally: “You attacked my son as if he were an animal. You are the animal, Mr. Khater.” “How do you feel when you’re headed to jail for a bald-faced lie?”
Sicknick’s longtime partner, Santa Garza, said Khater and Taños were “brainwashed” by Trump.
Judge Hogan was careful to point out that he did not pass judgment on Sicknick’s death, asserting that no such charge was before him on Friday. However, the judge said he could find no excuse for these actions that day.
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