Justin Jersey, a Michigan man identified by the Justice Department as 32 years old, was sentenced this week by federal Judge Rudy Contreras to over four years in prison and massive financial penalties totaling $32,165 over his participation in the 2021 attack on the Capitol inspired by Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. The specific sentence was 51 months.
Jersey engaged in violent altercations with police hours after the building was first breached, according to details provided by the Justice Department. The department also identified Jersey’s criminal acts as having taken place around an archway leading into the Capitol building from the Lower West Terrace. A tunnel leading into the building from the same area was the site of intense physical violence that day. There, rioters fought in hand-to-hand combat with police as the mob tried to force its way into the Capitol, and it’s also in that area that the frenzied Trump fanatics dragged then-officer Michael Fanone into the crowd and brutally beat him. According to the Justice Department, Jersey “grabbed one officer’s face, knocking the officer to the ground, then grappled with the officer over the officer’s baton.” Jersey then used that baton against other police officers.
The officer originally targeted by Jersey also suffered what the department identified as substantial physical injuries. While on the ground after Jersey forced him down, another member of the crowd began targeting the struggling cop. Jersey pleaded guilty last September to assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers, inflicting bodily injury. He admitted to the offense less than a year after his initial arrest, at which point he also faced other serious charges, although the count against him left in his plea agreement was among the more substantial. Jersey was among those targeted by online investigators who began looking after the Capitol attack into the identities of those involved. A sweatshirt from the University of Michigan and a distinctive tattoo on his hand, which reads, “Fuck you” across a finger, helped with establishing his identity.
Jersey was seen on camera with his middle finger up to police during the day’s violence.b There has still been no consistent denunciation from Trump of the violence seen on January 6 in his name. Instead, he seems just as likely to start talking about how it was supposedly all actually justified because of imaginary election fraud or clamoring for the release of detainees from the attack.
Image: Brett Davis/ Creative Commons
