By The Vanguard Staff
WASHINGTON, DC – Jorge Aaron Riley, a Sacramento man who appeared to be one of the first people to illegally enter the U.S. Capitol in the Jan. 6 insurrection, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison Wednesday. He faced up to 20 years behind bars.
The former corresponding secretary of the California Republican Assembly was also sentenced to two years of supervised probation, and will have to pay $2,000 in restitution and a $100 fine. He pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony.
The Dept. of Justice said Riley purchased a “6 Ninja Tactical Combat Hunting Kunai Throwing Knife Set” and later posted on Facebook, ‘I just bought new kanai throwing knives and am going to do what my president asks’ and ‘I’m going for the war.’”
Riley later posted on Facebook, “Do you really not get what is going to happen on the 6th? I absolutely am looking forward to that and NO MATTER WHAT THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN STOP IT!!!!”
DOJ said Riley “marched with others to the Capitol building and posted on Facebook a video of him and others with the Capitol building in the foreground,” stating, “There’s 100’s of thousands of people marching on the Nation’s Capitol!!!” and “Hey we’re storming the Capitol…what are you doing?”
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta said Riley should know the consequences the insurrection had on the people who were at the Capitol and the country now, and Riley should recognize how entering the Capitol during the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory was interfering with a long-established democratic process.
“The things you stood for are the very things you cast aside,” Mehta said before delivering the sentence.
Riley, 45, told the court Wednesday that he was “speaking on behalf of all the patriots” and that GOP legislators should have “adjudicated” the 2020 election results—then protesters would not have felt the need to come to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The judge Wednesday said there is no evidence Riley had the knives with him, but buying them and posting online about “war paint” demonstrated violent intent, and, as a veteran, “You understand what it means to be armed.”
The DOJ said Riley “was part of a mob that pushed past law enforcement officers and through hallways, outside Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s Office, balconies, Statuary Hall, and the Rotunda (and) stated in a recorded video, ‘It was mostly a peaceful, physical takeover of the Capitol … We stopped the steal because they were in there and they weren’t going to stop the steal, so we stopped the steal, we took our country back.’”
