WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Former New York City police officer Thomas Webster, who assaulted police in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in prison, the longest sentence yet handed down in a case related to the attack, Politico and CBS News reported.
Webster was found guilty in May of assaulting a Washington police officer during the riot at the Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
A federal jury in the District of Columbia had rejected arguments that Webster was acting in self-defense when he struck the officer with a flagpole and tackled him.
“I too wish you hadn’t come to Washington, D.C. I too wish you had stayed at home in New York … that you had not come out to the Capitol that day, because all of us would be far better off. Not just you … your family … the country,” D.C. federal Judge Amit Mehta was quoted as saying by CBS News when he announced the sentence on Thursday.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Eric Beech and Jonathan Oatis)
