A man convicted of storming the US Capitol with a gun has been given the longest jail term so far connected to the riot after being turned in by his son.
Prosecutors said Guy Reffitt told fellow members of his far-right militia group that he planned to drag House Speaker Nancy Pelosi out of the Capitol building by her ankles, “with her head hitting every step on the way down”.
He was jailed for seven years and three months in Washington after being convicted of obstructing Congress’ joint session, of interfering with police officers outside the Capitol and of threatening his two teenage children if they reported him to law enforcement.
It is the longest sentence imposed so far among hundreds of cases related to the insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump who sought to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020.
An oil-field worker and recruiter for the Three Percenters militia, Reffitt is said to have driven from Texas to Washington DC and led fellow rioters up the main staircase to the Capitol building.
Reffitt was armed with a pistol in a holster on his waist, carried zip-tie handcuffs and was wearing body armour and a helmet equipped with a video camera when he advanced on officers, according to prosecutors.
He retreated after an officer pepper sprayed him in the face, but video evidence showed Reffitt egging on the crowd and leading other rioters up a set of stairs outside the building.
Reffitt was reported to the FBI by his 18-year-old son at the time, who told investigators his father had threatened him.
“He said ‘if you turn me in, you’re a traitor,” the younger Reffitt said at his father’s trial earlier this year. “’And traitors get shot’”.
The sentence given to him was less than half the length of the 15-year prison term requested by a federal prosecutor, who called Reffitt a domestic terrorist and said he wanted to physically remove and replace members of Congress.
But US District Judge Dabney Friedrich rejected prosecutors’ contention that an “upward departure for terrorism” - leading to a far longer sentence - was warranted in Reffitt’s case.
It was the first time that prosecutors have requested that sentencing enhancement for a January 6 case.
