Jan. 6 rioter with 'I heart TRUMP' hat and a Confederate flag gets prison for assaults on officers
Isreal Easterday, who brought a Confederate flag to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and wore an "I heart TRUMP" beanie as he assaulted police officers, sentenced to prison.
WASHINGTON — A Jan. 6 defendant who took a Confederate flag to the Capitol and wore an "I ❤️ TRUMP" beanie as he assaulted police officers with chemical spray, partially blinding two of them for hours, was sentenced to 30 months in prison Monday.
Isreal Easterday, 23, was arrested in Florida in December 2022 and found guilty in October on several counts, including felony charges of civil disorder and assaulting officers.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge James E. Boasberg sentenced Easterday to 30 months in prison, as well as 500 hours of community service, along with $2,000 in restitution.
The government sought 151 months — or more than 12.5 years — in federal prison, saying his "felonious conduct" was "part of a massive riot that almost succeeded in preventing the certification vote from being carried out, frustrating the peaceful transition of Presidential power, and throwing the United States into a Constitutional crisis."
Prosecutors called the Confederate battle flag — which Easterday took up to the eastern doors of the U.S. Capitol where Abraham Lincoln's body passed through after his assassination in 1865 — "an established symbol of racism" as well as "a symbol of treason, defiance of the law, and insurrection."
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