A U.S. district judge on Wednesday reduced the sentence of a war veteran and former police officer convicted of six charges stemming from his participation in the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Virginia resident Thomas Robertson was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2022 for obstructing police officers during a civil unrest and entering a restricted area with a dangerous weapon. Robertson carried a large wooden baton during the riot and was photographed in the Capitol crypt making an obscene gesture in front of a statue of John Stark, a Revolutionary War general, prosecutors said during the jury trial.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper reduced Robertson’s sentence to six years in prison on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported. The new sentence comes after Cooper dismissed one of Robertson’s convictions: obstructing Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in June that a charge of obstruction of an official proceeding must include evidence that a defendant attempted to tamper with or destroy documents. That distinction did not apply to Robertson’s case, nor to most of the hundreds of criminal cases filed on Jan. 6.
The Army veteran is the first Capitol riot suspect to be resentenced following the Supreme Court ruling. In court documents, prosecutors had called on the judge to uphold the original sentence.
Army veteran sentenced to 7 years in prison for Capitol protests
Robertson, who declined to speak during his initial sentencing hearing, told the judge Wednesday that he looks forward to returning home and rebuilding his life after prison, AP reported.
“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.”
Robertson served in the U.S. Army for four years from 1991 to 1994 and joined the Army Reserve in 2001, his attorneys wrote in court documents. He deployed to Iraq in 2008 and was wounded by gunfire and mortar shells in Afghanistan in 2011, the documents said. He underwent 10 surgeries for his injuries.
After his recovery, Robertson joined the Rocky Mount, Virginia, police department, rising to the rank of sergeant. He was off duty but still working for the police department when he joined the Capitol riots. The city fired him after his arrest.
In a November 7, 2020, Facebook post, Robertson said, “I’ve spent most of my adult life fighting a counterinsurgency. (I) am about to be part of one, and a very effective one at that.”
Before his first sentencing in 2022, Robertson wrote a letter to the judge saying he took full responsibility for his actions on Jan. 6 and for “all the bad decisions I made.”
He blamed the vitriolic content of his social media posts on a combination of stress, alcohol abuse and “immersion into deep ‘rabbit holes’ of election conspiracy theories.”
“I was drinking too much late at night and commenting on articles and sites sent to me from Facebook,” he wrote.
This story was produced in collaboration with Military Veterans in JournalismSend tips to MVJ-Tips@militarytimes.com.
