WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge took prosecutors at their recommendation Friday in giving a two-month prison stint to a former Marine who filmed the Capitol insurrection on his GoPro and then refused to hand over his footage.
Boyd Allen Camper told FBI agents that the GoPro was in a place that can’t be found — a description that drew rebuke Friday from U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly.
“You clearly destroyed evidence,” the Clinton appointee said. “I think it’s reasonable to infer that the other content would not reflect favorably of your conduct.”
Camper traveled from Montana to Washington for the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally in which then-President Donald Trump urged his supporters to interrupt a ceremony going on at the nearby Capitol to certify his loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.
After the rally, which he had attended with his 10-year-old son, Camper said his child was tired and wanted to go back to the hotel. Camper claimed that he didn’t know how to get back, so they followed the crowd to the Capitol.
“I wanted to introduce my son to Washington, D.C., and let him see the president of the United States,” Camper told Kollar-Kotelly.
Before going inside the Capitol, Camper left his child with an adult friend/
“I went up to the front, and got caught up in the moment,” Camper said, who claimed he didn’t expect the rally to turn violent. At one point, Camper ripped a pitchfork out of another rioter’s hands and told him that it was a nonviolent protest.
Afterward, Camper told CBS in an interview that he was “on the front line.”
“We’re going to take this damn place,” Camper told the reporter. “If you haven’t heard, it's called the insurrection and we the people are ready.”
Camper told Kollar-Kotelly that the clip that was used in the news report was taken out of context, as the entire interview was about 90 seconds long and explained why they decided to come to the Capitol.
Now, Camper said that he believes he was “duped.”
“At the time, I thought that the information that had been revealed to me on social media was respectful and credible,” Camper said.
Camper, a single father, says that since Jan. 6, he has been fired by two employers, ostracized by his friends and community, and had accounts closed by two different banks. What’s more, other parents won’t let their kids be around his son, he told the judge, so they have moved to a different community.
“Hopefully, this will not be punitive to my son,” Camper said. “The effect this has had on me as a father has been very difficult.”
Kollar-Kotelly told Camper that she hopes that the sentence deters him, and others, from ever engaging in this type of behavior again.
“I hope you teach your son how lucky he is to live in a democracy,” Kollar-Kotelly said, who declined to let Camper serve his 60 days on weekends to eliminate custody complications with his son. “It’s unfortunate, but when you get involved in criminal conduct, your family sometimes suffers the consequences of your actions.”
Later on Friday, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols sentenced another Capitol rioter, Bradley Rukstales, to 30 days in jail. Rukstales threw a chair during the riot but would go on to say it was “the single worst personal decision of my life.” He pleaded guilty to unlawful picketing.
Also on Friday, Sean Carlo Cordon was sentenced to one month probation and a $4,000 fine. Cordon, who traveled from Los Angeles to Washington with his brother, Kevin Cordon, stayed in the Capitol for only a few minutes.
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