WASHINGTON (AP) — A far-right extremist group leader was sentenced on Friday to more than five years in prison for repeatedly assaulting police officers with makeshift weapons during a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol over three years ago.
Scott Miller, who helped lead a Proud Boys chapter for Maryland and Washington, D.C., coordinated with other group members before they invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to federal prosecutors. Miller, 33, attacked police seven different times with weapons, including a bottle, a stick and poles.
Notes found on Miller’s cellphone indicate that his white supremacist ideology and antisemitic views influenced his decision to storm the Capitol, a prosecutor wrote in a court filing. He expressed his intent to “fight” in order to protect “White America,” the filing says.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing former President Donald Trump’s election interference case in Washington, said an attack like the Jan. 6 insurrection “can happen again” in the U.S.
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BY MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Updated 4:48 PM EDT, April 19, 2024
Meanwhile — more worthless human detritus is about to be flushed.
This image from police body-worn camera video, contained and annotated in the Justice Department’s government’s sentencing memorandum supporting the sentencing of Scott Miller, shows Miller at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan sentenced Miller, of Millersville, Md.,
WASHINGTON — Three California men who were associated with the “Three Percenter” militia group and convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack were taken into custody Friday after a judge ordered them to serve sentences ranging from 21 to 33 months in federal prison, far below what the government had requested.
Erik Scott Warner, Felipe Antonio Martinez, Derek Kinnison and Ronald Mele were all found guilty of felony obstruction of an official proceeding and other charges after a trial last year. One of their co-defendants, former California police chief Alan Hostetter, was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison in December. The trials featured testimony from co-defendant Russell Taylor, who pleaded guilty as part of a plea deal with the government.
The felony charge they were convicted of — obstruction of an official proceeding — is currently before the Supreme Court, where some of the justices seemed skeptical of the way the government had used the charge. A decision in that case is expected in the coming months. If the Supreme Court guts the charge, two of the defendants could end up only serving 12 months in prison on their misdemeanor convictions.
The men communicated over a “The California Patriots — DC Brigade” Telegram chat and brought weapons on their trip to Washington to participate in Jan. 6, according to evidence shown at trial. They kept a shotgun in their car, and Kinnison and Mele claimed they stored five handguns in their hotel room “despite understanding that it was illegal,” the government said. “We’re packing light just a scatter gun and a pistol a piece,” Martinez joked, according to prosecutors.