A 72-year-old man who participated in the Capitol riot, where he hit a D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officer with a metal flagpole with enough force that the flagpole broke, was sentenced on Friday to nearly four years in prison.
The man, Pennsylvania resident Howard Richardson, was sentenced to 46 months in prison. After an arrest at the end of November of last year, Richardson pleaded guilty in April to a charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement officers. Federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who imposed the sentence, went with what prosecutors recommended in Richardson’s case. The charge to which he pleaded guilty carried up to eight years in prison if found guilty.
As reported on this site, Richardson lied under questioning about the nature of his assault on the D.C. officer he targeted, claiming he was simply acting in self-defense after an alleged swing from the cop. Incredibly, he continued to allege that he merely engaged in some form of self-defense even after viewing footage of the assault he perpetrated with an FBI agent and an officer with local police — footage that didn’t reveal any violence from the targeted D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officer against Richardson. “He identified himself on the video, but even after watching the clip twice, he continued to insist that he was striking back to an invisible provocation,” a Justice Department filing containing prosecutors’ sentencing-related arguments stated.
As recapped in a Twitter thread from journalist Scott MacFarlane, the prosecution outlined that Richardson claimed he personally saw election fraud as a poll watcher, evidently providing some of the motivation for the senior defendant traveling to D.C. at all. According to MacFarlane, Richardson — who spoke in court during his sentencing proceedings this week — remarked, in part: “I’m sorry. I’m just thankful that no one was hurt.” Numerous individuals were, in fact, injured — some particularly seriously — during the Capitol rioting. Notably, Richardson’s adult son is a longtime police officer. At a previous stage in the case, Richardson said: “I don’t look at the person as a police officer when he’s trying to strike me.” No evidence emerged, however, for the claim that the D.C. officer was “trying to strike” Richardson. During the course of this week’s sentencing proceedings, the judge repeatedly referenced how claims from Richardson about what transpired at the Capitol didn’t match available evidence.
Richardson, in the course of his own arguments in court, referenced his past military service, which the judge acknowledged. “When you’re in the military you swear to uphold the Constitution… and clearly on January 6 he didn’t uphold the Constitution,” the judge remarked, per MacFarlane’s retelling. At the Capitol, Richardson also participated in shoving what the Justice Department described as a large metal sign into a group of police officers. Richardson’s consequences also include three years of supervised release following his prison term and $2,000 he must pay in restitution. Richardson’s defense cited the defendant’s age and personal impacts from the case, including on his business, in pushing for leniency in sentencing. Meanwhile, prosecutors are now pushing for over 17 years in prison for riot defendant Thomas Webster, a former New York City police officer who also wielded a metal flagpole against police before tackling an officer to the ground and attempting to rip off some of the gear the officer wore.
Featured Image (edited): via Blink o’fanaye on Flickr and available under a Creative Commons License
