WASHINGTON — A supporter of former President Donald Trump, who was arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol after he was turned in to authorities by a user of the Bumble dating app, has been sentenced to three months of home detention.
Robert Chapman of Carmel, New York, was arrested in April 2021, three months after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. He pleaded guilty in December to a misdemeanor picketing charge.
Judge Rudolph Contreras of the federal district court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday sentenced Chapman to 18 months of probation, including three months of home detention with location monitoring. He was also ordered to pay about $1,200 in fines and restitution.
The FBI became aware of Chapman a week after the attack when a Bumble user he had messaged with contacted law enforcement and sent screenshots of her conversations with him on the app.
“I did storm the capitol. I made it all the way into Statuary Hall!” he wrote to the user.
“We are not a match,” the user replied, to which Chapman responded: “I suppose not.”
Chapman also bragged about his conduct on Facebook, according to prosecutors.
“I’M F—— INSIDE THE CRAPITOL!!!” he wrote in one post.
Chapman contributed to the chaos on Jan. 6, must be held accountable but is unlikely to reoffend, Contreras said.
“I don’t expect I’ll see you again,” the judge said, encouraging him to use his time in home detention “productively.”
Chapman told the court that his prayers went out to any individuals who were injured or negatively affected by rioters.
“I’m hoping as a nation and a country we can begin to heal and bond together and become a much more unified and loving nation,” he said Wednesday.
Other Jan. 6 rioters have also been arrested due to users of Bumble, a dating app in which women make the first move.
Andrew Taake, a Texas man arrested and charged with assaulting officers with a metal whip and pepper spray, was arrested after a woman in D.C. hopped on Bumble and sought to draw confessions from rioters.
“They wanted to regurgitate a lot of these ideas to somebody, and I seemed like a willing participant,” the woman, who was identified using the pseudonym “Claire,” told HuffPost. “It didn’t take a lot of arm twisting to get them to start talking about it.”
The FBI has made nearly 800 arrests in connection with the Capitol attack, and more than 290 defendants have pleaded guilty. The Biden administration has requested millions in additional resources to prosecute hundreds of outstanding cases stemming from the attack.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
