WASHINGTON – A Georgia defendant convicted on January 6 and serving 20 days in prison for his actions during the attack on the US Capitol has lost the Republican primary for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives, the Associated Press projects .
Charles Hand III, or Chuck Hand, was defeated by former Trump administration official Wayne Johnson as they vied for Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop to face in the general election in the solidly blue district. The two candidates advanced to a runoff after neither won a majority of votes during the first primary in May.
Hand walked out of a debate with Johnson earlier this month, not long after a former candidate in the race, Michael Nixon, brought up the criminal history of his wife, Mandy Robinson-Hand, who was his co-defendant in his Jan. 6 case. . As federal prosecutors noted in their 2023 sentencing memo in her Jan. 6 case, Robinson-Hand was previously convicted in 2008 of possession of oxycodone with intent to distribute and use in the commission of a crime. In his Jan. 6 case, Hand admitted that he “broke off a piece of metal fencing and placed it in his back pants pocket” as rioters fought with police on the west side of the U.S. Capitol. At the Capitol, he admitted that he saw rioters fighting with officers and “moved toward the altercation,” but that his wife pulled him away.
Hand, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo, “participated in the Jan. 6 riot despite watching rioters attack police and witnessing the destruction of property around him.” He then celebrated his participation in the riot, telling his wife, “Like I said. was a perfect time to be part of history!’. He then encouraged his wife not to turn herself in and to “deny, deny, deny.”
Hand also had a history of drunken driving arrests in 2005 and 2010. In a Jan. 6 letter to his judge in his case, Hand wrote that although he is now sober, he had “forced” his wife into his truck. after he drank more than a decade ago and “almost took her life because of my bad decision.” Robinson-Hand, her husband wrote, “was placed in a coma and placed on life support while her body was mutilated and torn apart.” She was bedridden and wheelchair-bound for years, Hand wrote, adding that he “single-handedly changed her life.”
More than 1,400 people have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, with prosecutors securing convictions against more than 1,000 defendants to date. More than 540 defendants have been sentenced to prison terms, ranging from short sentences like those given to Hand and his wife to 22 years in prison for a Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy.
Hand was one of several candidates running for office across the country this year who was involved in the Jan. 6 attack.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
