The man who pleaded guilty to assaulting U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick on Jan. 6, 2021, has been sentenced to 80 months in prison.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan sentenced Julian Khater, 33, on Friday on two counts of assaulting police with a dangerous weapon, which included the over six-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine. Co-defendant and friend George Tanios, 41, who notably purchased the pepper spray Khater used on Sicknick, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of disorderly and disruptive conduct and was sentenced to time served, which was about six months. Khater’s 22 months spent in prison already will be credited to his sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Gilead Light had previously advocated a 90-month sentence for Khater. Light said that Khater had timed his assault in order to hinder police from blocking protesters from entering the Capitol.
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“The line fell five minutes after Julian Khater’s pepper spray,” Light said during Hogan’s sentencing. “The line fell and we know what happened next.”
Sicknick went on to die of natural causes and suffered two strokes after being assaulted with chemical spray during the insurrection. However, Washington, D.C., Chief Medical Examiner Francisco J. Diaz told the Washington Post after an autopsy was conducted that the events of Jan. 6 played a role in Sicknick’s death.
Defense attorneys Chad Seigel and Joseph Tacopina attempted to lessen Khater’s punishment by explaining the alleged traumas he’d experienced as an emigrant from Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
“Indeed, Mr. Khater’s conduct on January 6th was not part of some orchestrated plan to attack democracy but rather constituted a fleeting and impulsive response to a moment of hysteria fueled by his preexisting diagnosed anxiety coupled with the potent influence of a mob mentality,” Seigel and Tacopina wrote in their sentencing memo.
Tacopina previously represented Donald Trump Jr.’s wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle, during her testimony to the Jan. 6 committee.
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Sicknick’s longtime partner, Sandra Garza, filed a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump and two others seeking $10 million from the defendants under claims of wrongful death and conspiracy to violate civil rights. She also filed a wrongful death civil suit against Khater.
