WASHINGTON (CN) — A former National Guardsman who was on the front lines of the clash with police during the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, was sentenced to 84 months in prison on Wednesday.
The seven-year sentence accounts both for the role Christopher Alberts played in encouraging other rioters to charge police officers and for the small arsenal of weapons and military gear found on his person. To wit, the Pylesville, Maryland, man was apprehended carrying a fully loaded pistol, gas mask and metal-plated body armor, as well as two knives, an extra magazine, a two-way radio, bungee cords and military rations.
In a statement Wednesday before receiving his sentence, Alberts offered an apology to any officers affected by his actions at the riot — some of whom were in the courtroom.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody,” Alberts said. “I just wanted it all to stop.”
But while the 35-year-old insisted that he did not intend to hurt anyone, U.S. District Judge Chris Cooper noted that the weapons Alberts brought to Washington indicate otherwise.
“I think you knew exactly what was going to happen,” Cooper said. “You prepared yourself, armed yourself.”
Prosecutors made special note that Alberts loaded his 9 mm pistol with hollow point and high-pressure rounds — ammunition specifically designed to inflict greater damage on their targets.
Alberts’ sentence comes a day after former President Donald Trump announced on his social media site Truth Social that he has received a target letter from special counsel Jack Smith, suggesting an imminent indictment for his role in spreading the lie that Democrats stole the 2020 election as well as for encouraging his supporters to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, as Congress was holding a ceremony to certify the election results.
Cooper on Wednesday made a veiled reference to Trump and the looming indictment, saying the former president held an outsized influence over the rioters and used their patriotic sentiments to further his own goals.
Prior to this week, the only people to be charged in connection to efforts to prevent the certification of the 2020 election results have those connected to the riot itself — about 1,000 individuals and counting. That changed Tuesday with the forgery-related felony charges filed Tuesday against 16 Michigan Republicans who falsely claimed to be the state’s presidential electors in order to overturn the election.
In a sentencing memorandum for Alberts, prosecutors called the defendant influential in the breach of the Capitol, having waved to people behind him after charging the police line at the forefront of the mob on the northwest stairs.
“As a result of Alberts’s assault on the USCP officers as part of a mob of rioters at the stairwell, officers were forced to fall back from the bike rack perimeter … the Capitol Building was breached and for several hours Congress was prevented from continuing … to certify the results of the 2020 election,” the memo states.
Alberts went on to berate police officers after the riot dispersed, Justice Department prosecutor Shalin Nohria said on Wednesday, calling them “domestic terrorists” and “treasonous, communist motherfuckers.”
Nohria urged Cooper to order the 10-year sentence prosecutors recommended, pointing to an apparent lack of remorse and “false righteousness” the defendant had for his actions.
“What makes Alberts so dangerous … is that he decides who is treasonous,” Nohria said. “He has acted and continues to act on that belief."
Alberts was one of a small number to be arrested on Jan. 6, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Though he had not use his firearm during the riot, it did lead to his arrest when officers trying to clear the Capitol recognized signs of his concealed weapon on his side, frisked him and detained him.
In charging documents, prosecutors included images that show Alberts at the riot, urinating on a wall of the Capitol and later throwing a bottle and using a bullhorn to shout at police.
Capitol Police Officer Stephen Sherman spoke during Wednesday’s hearing, describing how Alberts used a wooden pallet as a makeshift battering ram against him and other officers to break through the police line, quickly shifting the tone of the riot.
“You came to the Capitol that day to start a war, and you, in fact, turned that staircase into a war zone,” Sherman said.
In the 30 months since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the Justice Department has charged more than 1,000 people for their actions during the riot. Approximately 561 people have been sentenced. The investigation remains ongoing, with approximately 323 people who committed violent acts still unidentified.
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