Ex-NSA employee sentenced for storming Capitol with fellow white nationalists
America First 'Groypers' Thomas Carey, Paul Lovley, Jon Lizak, Gabriel Chase, and Joseph Brody / DOJ photo
June 14, 2023
A former National Security Agency employee was sentenced for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Federal prosecutors had recommended 30 days in prion for Paul Lovley, who had worked as an information technology specialist for the NSA, for storming the U.S. Capitol alongside fellow followers of the "groypers" white nationalist movement, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly imposed a 14-day sentence, reported the Associated Press.
“Groypers believe they are defending against the demographic and cultural changes that are destroying the ‘true America,’ a white, Christian nation,” Justice Department prosecutor Joseph Huynh wrote in a court filing. “Groypers attempt to normalize their ideology by aligning themselves with ‘Christianity’ and ‘traditional’ values, such as marriage and family.”
The 24-year-old Lovley pleaded guilty in February to a misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, which carries a maximum term of imprisonment of six months.
The judge will allow Lovley, who was charged alongside four other men described by prosecutors as members of the white nationalist America First movement, to serve his term over the course of seven weekends and will be followed by three years of probation.
The America First group's leader Nick Fuentes had dinner in November at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump and the rapper Ye.
Lovley was charged with co-defendants Joseph Brody, Thomas Carey, Jon Lizak and Gabriel Chase, who all gathered at his Maryland home the day before the riot and attended Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally together.