WASHINGTON (CN) — A Marine Corps veteran who repeatedly punched a police officer in the chest and helmet in his attempt to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony count.
Mark Leffingwell, from Seattle, faces a maximum sentence of eight years in prison, though the sentencing guidelines recommend between 24 and 30 months for the charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers..
“Leffingwell attempted to push past me and other officers. When he was deterred from advancing further into the building, Leffingwell punched me repeatedly with a closed fist,” U.S. Capitol Police Officer Daniel Amendola detailed in an affidavit. At one point, Leffingwell punched another law enforcement officer as well. “I was struck in the helmet that I was wearing and in the chest.”
Amendola and other officers worked to detain Leffingwell and took him to police headquarters for processing.
“While in custody … Leffingwell spontaneously apologized for striking the officer,” Amendola continued. “When told that the officer who Leffingwell had struck was me, Leffingwell apologized for striking me.”
Leffingwell, 51, sustained a traumatic brain injury while on tour in Iraq during a four-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps. His defense attorney Mark Carroll said Leffingwell is a fully disabled military veteran.
“I was not trying to attack,” Leffingwell told U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson. “If someone had told me that I couldn’t go in there, I wouldn’t have gone in there. I shouldn’t have gone in.”
Leffingwell danced around Jackson’s question of whether he intentionally hit the two officers, before finally admitting that he did.
“Yes, you honor,” Leffingwell said. “I shouldn’t have hit them.”
Seeking more time to collect records on Leffingwell’s traumatic brain injury, Carroll asked Jackson for a later sentencing date. Jackson agreed to sentence Leffingwell on Feb. 10, 2022.
“I think this is going to be a difficult case,” Jackson said.
Earlier on Tuesday, another former Marine, Carey Jon Walden, pleaded guilty to unlawful picketing, parading or demonstrating in a Capitol building.
The Kansas City man climbed up the West wall in front of the U.S. Capitol, entered the Capitol through a broken window, then stayed for about five minutes before leaving.
He faces up to six months in prison.
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