Former cop who took part in Capitol riots gets reduced prison sentence – NBC 7 San Diego

A former Virginia police officer who stormed the U.S. Capitol received a reduced prison sentence of six years on Wednesday, making him one of the first beneficiaries of 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 initially sentenced to seven years and three months in prison for joining a mob in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Prosecutors urged U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper to uphold the original sentence, but the judge imposed a shorter prison term Wednesday after agreeing to dismiss Robertson's conviction for obstructing Congress' certification of President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory.

Robertson is the first Capitol riot defendant to be resentenced after an obstruction conviction at the center of the Supreme Court’s decision in June was tossed out, according to Justice Department prosecutors. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a charge of obstructing an official proceeding must include evidence that a defendant attempted to falsify or destroy records — a distinction that applies to a handful of Jan. 6 criminal cases.

Starting with President Trump's “Save America Rally” speech, through the rioters who broke into the U.S. Capitol, and ending with the confirmation of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next President and Vice President of the United States, here's a look at what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“I guess I won't see you a third time,” the judge told Robertson at the end of his second sentencing hearing.

Robertson, who declined to address the court at his first sentencing hearing, told the judge Wednesday he was looking forward to returning home and rebuilding his life after prison.

“I realize that the positions I took that day were wrong,” he said of January 6. “I stand before you deeply sorry for what happened that day.”

A jury convicted Robertson on all six counts in his indictment, including obstructing police officers during a civil disorder 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 off-duty Rocky Mount police officer, Jacob Fracker, and a third man, a neighbor who has not been charged in the case.

Fracker, who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and agreed to cooperate with the government, was sentenced in 2022 to probation and two months of home detention.

The jurors who convicted Robertson saw some of his social media posts before and after the riot. In a November 7, 2020, Facebook post, Robertson said, “Being disenfranchised 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,” 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 had been stolen from then-President Donald Trump.

“He is calling for an open, armed rebellion. He is prepared to start one,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Aloi told the judge.

Prosecutors said Robertson used his law enforcement and military training to block officers who tried to hold back the advancing crowd.

Defense attorney Mark Rollins said Robertson made poor choices and behaved inappropriately on Jan. 6, but he was not trying to “overthrow democracy” that day.

“What you find now is a broken man,” Rollins said.

The city fired Robertson and Fracker after the riot. Rocky Mount is about 25 miles south of Roanoke, Virginia, and has a population of about 5,000.