Man who bragged that he ‘fed’ an officer to the mob of Capitol rioters gets nearly 5 years in prison
WASHINGTON — A Georgia entrepreneur who bragged about “feeding” a police officer to a mob of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced Thursday to nearly five years in prison for his repeated attacks on law enforcement during the insurrection. .
Jack Wade Whitton struck an officer with a metal crutch and dragged him — head first and face down — into the crowd on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. Whitton later boasted in a text message that he had “fed him to the people.”
About 20 minutes later, Whitton tried to pull a second officer into the crowd, prosecutors say. He also kicked, threatened and threw a construction pylon at officers trying to keep the crowd of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters at bay.
“You’re going to die tonight!” he shouted at police after hitting an officer’s riot shield.
Whitton, of Locust Grove, Georgia, expressed remorse for his “heinous” actions on Jan. 6 before U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras sentenced him to four years and nine months in prison. The 33-year-old will receive credit for the three years he has spent in prison since his arrest.
“I tell you with confidence, I have changed,” Whitton told the judge.
Whitton, who pleaded guilty to an assault charge last year, told the judge he has never been a “political person.”
“I have never been a troublemaker. “I have always been a hard worker and a law-abiding citizen,” he said.
The judge said the videos of Whitton attacking police were “horrific.”
“You really had no control anymore,” the judge told him.
Prosecutors ordered a prison sentence of eight years and one month for Whitton, who owned and operated his own fence-building business before his arrest in April 2021.
“Whitton looked for opportunities to attack: in his three documented attacks, he was either a ringleader or a lone actor,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
Videos show that simultaneous attacks on police by Whitton and co-defendant, Justin Jersey, “fueled the furious paroxysm of violence that followed” on the Lower West Terrace, prosecutors said.
“As Whitton and Jersey began their attacks, the tenor of the crowd audibly changed,” they wrote. “Other rioters rushed to the Archway and joined the attack, throwing objects at officers and hitting them with improvised weapons such as a hockey stick, pieces of wood, a flagpole and a police riot shield.”
Whitton was one of nine suspects charged in the same attack. Two co-defendants, Logan Barnhart and Jeffrey Sabol, helped Whitton drag an officer into the crowd before other rioters beat the officer with a flagpole and a stolen police baton.
That evening, Whitton texted someone images of his bloody hands.
“This is from a bad cop,” he wrote. ‘Yes, I told him to the people. (I don’t know) his status. And it doesn’t matter (to be honest).”
Komron attorney Jon Maknoon said Whitton traveled to Washington to support his girlfriend because she wanted to “witness a historic event” on Jan. 6, when Trump, a Republican, held a rally as Congress was on the verge of his loss in certify the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden, a Democrat.
“Although his motives were not politically driven, he does have a genuine love for his country and shares the desire for free and fair elections, just like any other citizen,” Maknoon wrote.
The judge previously sentenced seven of Whitton’s co-defendants to prison terms ranging from two years and six months to five years and ten months.
More than 1,350 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. More than 850 of them have been convicted, of which roughly two-thirds receive a prison sentence ranging from a few days to 22 years.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.