Justin Dee Adams, a 49-year-old man from Utah identified by federal authorities as a licensed gun dealer, has been sentenced to 17 months of prison to be followed by a year of supervised release after actions at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, that authorities say included repeated confrontations with police.
Adams was engaging with officers outside the Capitol in the minutes before the building was breached that afternoon. After an initial confrontation, “Adams then turned and charged at the police line, attacking the police officer and other officers who attempted to push him back. Adams struck an officer twice in the head with his hands,” authorities said. One of the blows made contact with the officer’s face.
At around the very moments the Capitol building was first breached elsewhere, Adams is also accused of helping dismantle a barricade comprised of metal bike racks blocking the West Plaza. “Despite the officers’ efforts, rioters succeeded in overwhelming the police and surged through the gap that Adams had created, flooding into the West Plaza of the Capitol,” a press release from the Justice Department said.
Another recent sentence was much longer, with a former local police chief from California-turned-evidently ardent conspiracy theorist sentenced to over 11 years in prison. That defendant was Alan Hostetter, who alleged in the time since his own participation in the riot that the violent event was somehow “staged.” He even questioned whether deceased January 6 participant Ashli Babbitt was actually dead, getting into a confrontation with Babbitt’s mother after his recent sentencing. Babbitt was shot by an officer that day and died. Elsewhere, authorities have newly arrested a Texas woman accused of participating in physical attacks on journalists and then resisting officers’ attempts to clear the indoors area after Babbitt sustained her ultimately fatal injuries. That defendant is named Dana Jean Bell.
