An Oregon man who ran unsuccessfully for governor in his home state the year after joining the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol in early 2021 has been sentenced to nearly four years of prison after an earlier conviction in his Capitol riot case by a jury.
The defendant, Reed Knox Christensen, 65, received specifically 46 months in prison after convictions on charges including civil disorder and assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers.
Christensen’s other penalties from federal Judge Royce Lamberth include $22,000 in financial penalties categorized as “restitution” payments. Christensen’s actions at the Capitol highlighted in a federal press release that announced his sentencing took place just after the Capitol building itself was breached, though he was still outside. He “initiated the forcible removal of bike rack barriers on the West Plaza of the Capitol grounds,” the release says. Prosecutors have repeatedly singled out when Capitol riot participants allegedly helped facilitate further incursion and attacks at the complex by others.
Christensen, authorities say, was pepper-sprayed by police, who then provided him assistance in washing it away… after which point he began attacking officers. “The government’s evidence at trial showed that after receiving aid from officers, Christensen charged through the perimeter at several officers, struck them with his fists, and pushed them,” that release continues.
His conviction came in September of last year following an arrest just a few months after the Capitol riot happened — placing his failed bid for governor, in which he lost colossally at the primary stage, after he was already known as an alleged participant in the January 6 violence. Christensen ultimately only received a few thousand votes, although the primary was crowded, and even the first-place winner’s share was only 22.5 percent.
Trump’s suggestions of pardoning participants in the Capitol riot continue to loom over these cases. He’s awaiting a decision in his own January 6-related case from a court of appeals in Washington, D.C., that recently heard his claims of wide-ranging legal protections by virtue of his time in office that should supposedly stop the case from Special Counsel Jack Smith.
