An individual involved with the far-right organization the Proud Boys — at least at the time he committed the acts at issue — has been sentenced to a decade in prison after a conviction on all charges amid criminal proceedings stemming from the deadly Capitol violence of January 6, 2021.
The defendant, a Florida man named Christoper Worrell, went temporarily missing from federal supervision in the lead-up to his actual sentencing, which was originally scheduled for earlier. He’d been released from prior detention amid health concerns.
Worrell’s original charges were wide-ranging and included accusations of assaulting police with a chemical irritant. As recapped by a press release from the Justice Department, Worrell argued at trial that the pepper spraying was meant for others in the crowd rather than officers. It probably was especially difficult to get out of the baseline conclusion that Worrell had sprayed the irritant at all, because a photojournalist who was present captured the aggressive encounter. Presiding Judge Royce Lamberth “commented in reading the verdict that the defendant’s defense that he had been pepper spraying other violent rioters, instead of U.S. Capitol Police officers, was “preposterous,”” that earlier press release said.
Like other participants in the Capitol attack, Worrell also filmed himself. One portion of the footage also highlighted in that release features the defendant berating police officers in aggressive terms. He also reacted enthusiastically to an attack on police by an associate of his that the government said helped force officers from the path subsequently used by those who kicked off the breach of the actual Capitol building itself, after which the violence still continued — inside and outside — for hours.
According to journalist Kyle Cheney, Worrell’s health questions came up again at the sentencing hearing. “Lamberth said Worrell’s actions directly improved conditions for all inmates by exposing problems at the jail,” Cheney recounted on X. An earlier request from prosecutors for Worrell’s sentence had been slightly higher and would have put him past a decade.
