The man known as the “QAnon Shaman,” who stormed the U.S. Capitol in January while wearing a Viking headdress and carrying a spear, has been sentenced to 41 months in federal prison.
Jacob Anthony Chansley has already served more than 10 months in jail, according to his attorneys, which means the sentence handed down Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth will ultimately amount to less than three years behind bars.
The judge also required Chansley to serve three years of probation after his release, according to CBS News.
“What you did here was horrific, as you can now see,” Lamberth told Chansley during sentencing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the network reported.
Chansley, dressed in a green prison jumpsuit, expressed regret for storming the Capitol and said he “would do everything differently” if he had the chance to reconsider his actions.
“I was wrong for entering the Capitol. I have no excuse,” he told Lamberth. “I am in no way, shape or form a dangerous criminal. I am not a violent man. I am not an insurrectionist. I am certainly not a domestic terrorist,” he continued, according to CBS. “I am nothing like these criminals that I have been incarcerated with.”
The sentence turned out to be 10 months less than the 51 months that federal prosecutors recommended last week for Chansley.
Chansley pleaded guilty in September to obstruction of an official proceeding after numerous photographs showed him bare-chested in Senate chambers and standing triumphantly behind the speaker’s podium wielding a bullhorn.
He has now become the third of hundreds of felony defendants to be sentenced for participating in the riot carried out by supporters of former President Donald Trump, according to a report by Politico.
The length of Chansley’s sentence is among the stiffest of penalties yet for any of the perpetrators although he had previously faced more than 20 years behind bars for his role in the mayhem. But the one-time Trump supporter was neither charged with destroying property nor assaulting federal officers who were dispatched to protect the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“Defendant Chansley’s now-famous criminal acts have made him the public face of the Capitol riot,” the Justice Department said in a 28-page sentencing memo filed with the court last Tuesday, according to Politico.
“The defendant was among the first 30 rioters to penetrate the U.S. Capitol building,” prosecutors continued. “The defendant then stalked the hallowed halls of the building, riling up other members of the mob with his screaming obscenities about our nation’s lawmakers, and flouting the ‘opportunity’ to rid our government of those he has long considered to be traitors.”
Prosecutors noted that “Chansley showed no remorse in the days after the event.”
One image taken of Chansley shows him standing at the dais where then-Vice President Mike Pence had stood only minutes earlier as confirmation of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory got underway.
There, on a stack of papers left behind by lawmakers as they scrambled to flee the mob, Chansley wrote a note saying “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming,” prosecutors said.
Video has also emerged of Chansley writing the message as the rioters overran the Capitol chanting “Kill Mike Pence!”
Chansley, however, told the FBI the note was not meant as a threat and went on to call Pence a “child-trafficking traitor.”
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