Photo: MICHAEL REYNOLDS / EFE
An assailant who assaulted law enforcement officers with pepper spray outside the police building United States Capitol during the January 6 attack he was sentenced to 80 months in prison on Friday with credit for time served.
Julian Khater of Somerset, New Jersey, pleaded guilty last September to two felonies of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers with a dangerous weapon during the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. He has been incarcerated since March 14, 2021.
One of the officers Khater was accused of assaulting, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, died the day after the attack.
Washington, D.C. Chief Medical Examiner Francisco Diaz found that Sicknick died of natural causes after suffering multiple strokes; Diaz told The Washington Post that “everything that happened played a role in his condition.”
In court on Friday, Sicknick’s mother, Gladys Sicknick, told Khater: “You attacked my son like he was an animal. You are the animal, Mr. Khater…”
Khater’s role in the insurrection
Khater traveled to the Capitol on January 6 with his now co-defendant, George Pierre Tanios of Morgantown, West Virginia. Tanios had purchased two cans of pepper spray and two cans of bear spray at some point before the two men arrived in DC, the Justice Department said.
“Surveillance video shows Khater reaching into Tanios’ backpack and pulling out one of the chemical spray canisters they had brought to Washington,” the pre-sentence government memo alleges, describing Khater as angry, emotional and out of control.
After addressing the crowd on the lower west side of the Capitol, prosecutors say Khater pointed the pepper spray at a line of officers.
“Khater’s attack, along with attacks by hundreds of other rioters, resulted in the collapse of the police line,” the government wrote, “Khater’s first victim was United States Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. ”.
Judge Hogan was careful to note that he was not sentencing Khater for Sicknick’s death, stressing that that charge was not before him on Friday. Still, the judge said that he found no excuse for that day’s actions.
With information from NPR and CBS News
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