WASHINGTON — A Capitol rioter who pushed against a police line on Jan. 6 before storming the building and calling the police officers “little f–king spineless f–king oath violating little f–king weasels” was sentenced to eight months in federal prison on Friday.
Glen Simon pleaded guilty, first in October, then again in April after more evidence against him was discovered, to a count of disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds. Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell noted Friday that he had a plated vest, joined a mob pushing a bike rack against a line of police officers, and entered the building as the “tip of the mob.”
Simon, Howell said, “helped incite the crowd” by yelling and cursing at law enforcement and then lied twice to the FBI about his actions on Jan. 6. She noted that he could have been charged separately for his lies.
Howell said that Simon’s personal problems “perhaps contributed to his susceptibility” to falling in with “conspiracy theories about a stolen election being egged on by politicians.” But his susceptibility made it important to deter others “who also might be susceptible” like the defendant, she said.
“Listening without question to political rhetoric that leads to serious offenses, criminal conduct, is not an excuse when you’re standing in a court of law,” Howell said. “There are consequences for going along with a crowd with such unquestioning, following of political rhetoric.”
Howell said she knew his time in prison would be difficult for his children, but said she hoped it might be a lesson for his children as well.
“You’ve got to use your common sense and your own sense of who you are and how you’d like to conduct yourself as an American citizen before just blindly doing what a political figure says,” Howell said.
Simon told Howell that he knew what he did was wrong, and he knew he had to pay for what he did. He said that he was going through a very difficult time in his life in the months leading up to Jan. 6, going through a divorce and business issues.
“Since everything has fallen apart, I’ve slowly picked up the pieces, Simon said. “I’m ready to lose it all again, and I won’t complain about it, and I’ll get out and do the same exact thing, but I’m just not ready to … destroy the trust that I’ve already earned back from my children. That’s the only punishment that I’m concerned with, I don’t care about any of the other stuff.”
Simon said his actions were “extremely out of character” and that he had no intention of participating in anything like Jan. 6 ever again.
While inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, Simon “yelled and chanted in the direction of police so long and loudly that his voice became hoarse,” prosecutors argued, pointing to video Simon himself recorded.
“This is what a revolution looks like, folks. This is what happens when the people are f–ked with, over and over and over again. F–ked with over and over again,” he said in the video. “This is what happens when the people get tired of it. We f–king bust that f–king door down. The boys busted the windows in, busted the door down, and we started pouring in here.”
Howell said it was clear that Simon was “volatile and very angry” and said Simon was not the type of individual that she wanted to be sending out to do community service, questioning why the government was making that recommendation.
About 850 people have been arrested in connection with the Capitol attack, and there are hundreds of cases yet to come as part of the sprawling investigation.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
