WASHINGTON (CN) — A South Carolina trucker who initially claimed that pictures taken at the Capitol riot did not show him but rather someone to whom he bore a strong resemblance was sentenced Thursday to three years of probation.
“It has come to my attention that there was someone who looks like me at the Capitol. I’d like to set the record straight,” Andrew Hatley wrote on Facebook. “I don’t have that kind of motivation for lost causes. I just don’t care enough anymore, certainly not enough for all that.”
At his sentencing Thursday before U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan, Hatley explained that he posted that disavowal to Facebook because he was “terrified.” Now, he said, he is deeply remorseful for what he’s done.
“I’ve only got one lifetime, your honor, and I don’t think it’s enough time to make up for it,” said Hatley, who wore a gas mask and entered the Capitol through a broken window.
“I think you have shown true remorse,” said Hogan, a Reagan appointee, who noted that Hatley has a strong work ethic and no criminal history.
Later on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich sentenced two friends from Illinois who spent 20 minutes inside the Capitol building on Jan. 6 to two years' probation.
“If walking around and singing some patriotic songs is a crime, then I guess I am guilty,” Douglas Wangler allegedly told someone after the riot. Wangler was joined by his friend Bruce Harrison.
Meanwhile, a former West Virginia councilman pleaded guilty Thursday to unlawful picketing and theft after he stole power cord equipment from C-SPAN’s Capitol team on Jan. 6.
Eric Barber was elected to the Parkersburg City Council in 2016 as a Democrat, then changed his registration to Independent, and then again to Republican before losing his reelection bid in 2020. While a councilman, he received a marijuana charge and his license was revoked.
On Jan. 6, Barber wore a green combat-style helmet and a green military-style field jacket, and wandered around the Capitol building taking selfies.
“They’re giving us the building,” Barber was heard saying on video footage.
Also on Thursday, a New York man whose Bumble match turned him into the FBI pleaded guilty to parading, picketing or demonstrating in a Capitol building.
Robert Chapman, who posted on Facebook that he was traveling to the “District of Criminality” and that he was inside the “Crapitol,” will face a maximum of six months in prison.
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