A 68-year-old man sporting a hat that read “CNN: FAKE NEWS” -- and who attacked multiple officers at the U.S. Capitol with a pipe -- received one of the longest sentences handed down to date in connection with the January 6 riot.
Duke Edward Wilson, of Nampa, Idaho, was sentenced Friday to 51 months in prison followed by 36 months of supervised probation and a fine of $2,000 by Judge Royce C. Lamberth. Wilson had pleaded guilty last September to assaulting, resisting or impeding officers and obstructing an official proceeding, both felonies.
“Lamberth said the 51-month sentence — the maximum allowed under federal sentencing guidelines — was necessary because the insurrection was 'a horrible day for our country,'" the Idaho Press reported. “It's a message that the court has to send, that our country cannot deal with that.”
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The Press also reports:
“U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell told the judge during the hearing that he is still suffering from the injuries he suffered after Wilson's attack, underwent surgeries to fuse a bone in his foot and to repair his shoulder and may need additional shoulder surgeries.
“Prosecutors said Wilson charged a set of doors in the tunnel and prevented officers from closing them, and then tried to rain blows on the officers using a thin PVC pipe that he had apparently found on the ground. Gonell tried to block the pipe from hitting a fellow officer who had no helmet, he said.
“Both my hands were bleeding at that time from blocking,” Gonell said. “He insisted on continuing to fight me to prevent us from closing that door, that would enable him and his fellow insurrectionists to advance in the tunnel and the Capitol as members of Congress and the Senate were being evacuated from the very same route.”
“I remember vividly what happened that day to me, to him,” Gonell said. “More than one year later I am still not able to put on my police uniform due to those injuries because of what he did to me and my fellow officers.”
You can read the FBI criminal complaint against Wilson here.
