WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Virginia police officer who stormed the U.S. Capitol received a reduced six-year prison sentence Wednesday, becoming one of the first to benefit from a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling limiting the government’s use of a federal obstruction law.
More than two years ago, former Rocky Mount Police Sergeant Thomas Robertson was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison for joining a mob attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Prosecutors urged U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper to uphold the original sentence, but the judge imposed the shorter prison term on Wednesday after agreeing to overturn Robertson’s conviction for obstructing Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Robertson was the first Capitol riot defendant to be resentenced after a conviction on the obstruction charge at the heart of the Supreme Court’s June ruling was thrown out, Justice Department prosecutors said. The high court ruled 6-3 that an obstruction of an official proceeding charge must include evidence that a defendant attempted to tamper with or destroy documents — a distinction that applies to some of the Jan. 6 criminal cases.
“I assume I won’t be seeing you a third time,” the judge told Robertson at the end of the second hearing.
Robertson, who refused to speak at his first sentencing hearing, told the judge on Wednesday that he looks forward to returning home after his prison sentence and rebuilding his life.
“I realize that the positions I took that day were wrong,” he said of Jan. 6. “I stand before you with deep regret for what happened that day.”
A jury convicted Robertson on all six counts in his indictment, including obstructing police officers during a civil unrest and entering a restricted area with a dangerous weapon, a large wooden baton. Robertson’s jury trial was the second of hundreds of Capitol riot cases.
Robertson traveled to Washington that morning with another Rocky Mount police officer on duty, Jacob Fracker, and a third man, a neighbor who was not charged in the case.
Fracker, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and agreed to cooperate with the government, was sentenced in 2022 to probation and two months of home confinement.
Jurors who convicted Robertson saw some of his social media posts before and after the riot. In a Facebook post on Nov. 7, 2020, Robertson said, “Being dispossessed by fraud is my hard line.”
“I have spent most of my adult life fighting a counterinsurgency. I am about to become part of one, and a very effective one at that,” he wrote.
After January 6, Robertson told a friend he was prepared to fight and die in a civil war, and he clung to baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen from then-President Donald Trump.
“He is calling for an open, armed uprising. He is prepared to start one,” Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Aloi told the judge.
Prosecutors say Robertson used his law enforcement training and military service to block police officers who were trying to hold back the approaching crowd.
Defense attorney Mark Rollins said Robertson made bad choices and behaved badly on Jan. 6, but he did not try to “overthrow democracy” that day.
“What you find now is a broken man,” Rollins said.
The city fired Robertson and Fracker after the riots. Rocky Mount is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Roanoke, Virginia, and has a population of about 5,000.
