WASHINGTON (AP) — The son of a prominent conservative activist was sentenced Friday to nearly four years in prison for what prosecutors said was his “brutal” attack on the U.S. Capitol in which he smashed a window, chased a police officer and breached the Senate floor. .
Lion Brent Bozel IV, 44, of Palmyra, Pennsylvania, was among the first rioters to enter the Capitol and among the first to reach the Senate floor during the January 6, 2021 siege.
Bozell’s father, L. Brent Bozell III, founded the Media Research Center, the Parents Television Council and other conservative media organizations.
The younger Bozell turned to two Capitol Police officers sitting in the courtroom to apologize before U.S. District Judge John Bates sentenced him to three years and nine months behind bars. He also told his parents and wife that he has “stained my family forever.”
“I don’t recognize that person in the videos,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Bates said the storming of the Capitol was not a spontaneous act by Bozell. He had made plans to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and expected violence that day, the judge noted.
“You had plenty of opportunities to stop what you were doing,” the judge said.
Prosecutors recommended Bozell receive a prison sentence of 11 years and eight months. They said he carried out “merciless and sustained attacks” on law enforcement while joining or leading other rioters in breaching police lines at several locations inside and outside the Capitol.
“Few Jan. 6 rioters were involved in as many critical breaches as Bozell,” prosecutors wrote.
The judge released Bozell until he reports to jail on a date to be determined. Bozell thanked the judge after hearing his sentence.
Bozell was arrested in February 2021. An FBI tipster who identified Bozell recognized him in part from the “Hershey Christian Academy” sweatshirt he wore on January 6.
Bates heard testimony without a jury before convicting Bozell of 10 charges, including obstructing the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
After then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally at the White House on January 6, Bozell marched to the Capitol and joined a crowd to break a police line.
Bozell used a metal object to shatter the window of the Senate wing door. After climbing through the broken window, Bozell joined other rioters and chased a Capitol Police officer, Eugene Goodman, up a flight of stairs to an area where other officers confronted the group.
Bozell entered then-Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s office and left with an unknown item. He later entered the Senate Gallery, where he pointed a C-SPAN camera at the ground so it could not record rioters ransacking the chamber on a live video feed. He also spent several minutes on the Senate floor.
Bozell wandered through the Capitol for nearly an hour, reaching more than a dozen different parts of the building and passing through at least seven lines of police before police escorted him out, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors had argued for a “terrorism enhancement” that would significantly increase the recommended prison sentence for Bozell. But the judge refused to apply the enhancement, saying it “doesn’t make much sense in this case.”
Attorney Eric Snyder said Bozell does not deserve to be described as a terrorist.
“Good people do bad things,” Snyder said. “This is a good person who did something terrible.”
Bozell’s father filed a letter with the court expressing support for his son — and questioning prosecutors’ motives for amplifying terrorism.
“I have been silent for the past three and a half years because I did not want to upset the apple cart of justice,” he wrote. “But given what I saw during the trial, and more importantly, learning about this amplification of terrorism, I can no longer do that. I think there is more going on here.”
More than 1,350 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. More than 850 of them have been convicted, with roughly two-thirds receiving a prison sentence ranging from a few days to 22 years.
