A Pennsylvania man who pleaded guilty late last year to a felony offense of obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder over joining the Capitol riot was sentenced this week to prison.
Defendant Cameron Edward Hess, identified by federal authorities as 27 years old, got nine months in detention and 36 months of supervised release. Hess was among the Capitol rioters who actually entered the building, which is a subset of the crowds where prosecutors are focusing alongside individuals accused of physical violence largely against police officers.
Once pushed out of the Capitol by police during the day’s chaos, Hess was persistent in attempting a re-entry, per the timeline provided by a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office for Washington, D.C. Confronting an officer attempting to close doors into the Capitol, Hess “physically engaged the officer with his right arm while holding the door open with his left,” that release recapped. These reported interactions transpired a little more than an hour after Capitol riot participants first entered the building that day.
In a later text conversation described by federal authorities, Hess characterized himself as “brawling at the door” when still at the Capitol. He later asked via text that the message recipient not “tell anyone I was there.” That didn’t work out how Hess likely hoped.
Donald Trump, who originated the lies of a stolen presidential election that drove the deadly attack on the Capitol that threatened the lives of legislators, Capitol staff, police, and others, characterizes detainees with criminal allegations originating in the day’s events as “hostages,” alleging political plots are behind proceedings against them. And Trump’s overall descriptions of alleged politics seen in these and related proceedings get extreme. The ex-president recently used the death in Russian detention of opposition leader Alexei Navalny to complain about his own claimed troubles here in the United States, eventually declaring himself in a speech a political “dissident.” Amid his expansive criminal cases, the procedural protections to which Trump has consistently had access dispel ideas of authoritarian plots!
