Trump fan gets eight years for assaulting officers during Jan. 6 Capitol breach
WASHINGTON — A Donald Trump supporter who assaulted law enforcement at the Capitol on Jan. 6, including a Capitol Police officer who he helped knock unconscious when her head slammed against a metal railing, was sentenced to eight years in federal prison on Thursday.
Stephen Chase Randolph, a 34-year-old Kentucky man, was originally identified after a facial recognition search matched an image of him at the Capitol to a photo from his girlfriend's Instagram page. He was convicted after a trial that took place last year on charges of felony civil disorder as well as assaulting an officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon and assaulting, resisting or impeding another officer.
Three of Randolph's co-defendants — men who helped set off the initial breach of the Capitol perimeter — were also sentenced on Thursday: James Tate Grant to three years; Jason Benjamin Blythe to 30 months; and Paul Russell Johnson to five years of probation with intermittent confinement on weekends for the first year along with two additional years of home detention.
Another co-defendant named Ryan Samsel — who was holding a giant flag portraying Trump as "Rambo" before he assaulted officers on Jan. 6 — will be sentenced on Feb. 4, 2025.
The eight-year sentence given to Randolph is among the lengthier sentences dished out to a rioter who wasn't a part of the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy cases. Only a small number of individual rioters who were not charged in conspiracy cases have received lengthier sentences. Among them: David Dempsey, who repeatedly assaulted officers inside the lower west tunnel to the Capitol, received 20 years; Peter Schwartz, received 14 years; Danny "D.J." Rodriguez, who saw Trump as a father figure and drove a stun gun into the neck of former Officer Michael Fanone, received 12.5 years; Christopher Quaglin, received 12 years; and former New York City Police Department Officer Thomas Webster, received 10 years.
The trial of Randolph, Grant, Blythe, Johnson and Samsel featured dramatic testimony from the first officer known to have been injured during the riot: Caroline Edwards. Edwards, who testified before the House Jan. 6 committee back in June 2022, testified at the men's trial last October, saying she had been briefly knocked out when her head struck a banister after Randolph and other rioters shoved a bike rack into her during the initial breach of the barricades.
“The lights were on,” Edwards said, describing her mental state after she hit her head, “but no one was home.”
When FBI special agents went undercover to speak to Randolph at the convenience store where he worked in April 2021, he recalled watching “a lady cop get slammed" and said she had to have gotten a concussion because she "just [laid] there in the fetal position.” Edwards testified about the lingering impact of the attack, saying that she suffered "excruciating" pain that required physical therapy and was stuck on desk duty for a year and a half.
Randolph also assaulted another officer after going over the bike rack, one of many that were used by law enforcement to try to keep rioters away from the Capitol building. Federal prosecutors said it was clear he had no remorse. “It was f---ing fun,” Randolph bragged to one of the undercover agents before his arrest.
After his arrest, federal authorities said Randolph downplayed his behavior and lied during his custodial interview with the FBI.
"Can’t y'all just, like, we accepted defeat already, we lost, Joe Biden is president, yay," Randolph said during his interview, according to the FBI.
Randolph struck a different tone in a recorded call from a detention facility in Kentucky, prosecutors noted.
"I got caught up in the heat of the moment, everyone cheering and chanting and screaming," he said. "It washed over me and I grabbed the fence and started shaking with everybody. That lady just fell and hit her head. It’s just a disaster, I feel so bad.”
Randolph's defense team said that the Kentucky man didn't bring tactical gear to Washington on Jan. 6, as others did, and that he "clearly got caught up in the mob mentality" after heading to hear Trump speak on Jan. 6, a trip he saw as a "vacation" and a "break."
"Going to see Mr. Trump speak in Washington, D.C. was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him," they wrote.
About 1,500 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack, and federal prosecutors have secured convictions against more than 1,000 Jan. 6 defendants along with hundreds of prison sentences ranging from a few days behind bars to 22 years in federal prison.
Trump has referred to the Jan. 6 rioters as “political prisoners,” "hostages," "warriors" and "unbelievable patriots" and said he'll pardon at least "a large portion" of them as one of his first acts in office if elected in November. The former president is facing felony charges for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and retain power; he has pleaded not guilty.
A federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan said earlier this year that the "destructive, misguided rhetoric" used by some Republicans poses a danger to the country and that their "preposterous" claims are an attempt to "rewrite history" on the Jan. 6 attack.
"The Court is accustomed to defendants who refuse to accept that they did anything wrong," said Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. "But in my thirty-seven years on the bench, I cannot recall a time when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream."
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com