Justice Department-provided photos show Jan. 6 rioter Isreal Easterday spraying police with pepper spray inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; Easterday hoists a Confederate battle flag he brought from home; Easterday sporting a pro-Trump beanie on Jan. 6 before assaulting police.
Isreal Easterday, a Confederate flag-waving Jan. 6 rioter who donned an “I [heart] Trump” beanie as he assaulted police defending the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, was sentenced to 30 months, or 2 1/2 years, in prison, a steep downward departure from the 12 1/2 years prosecutors initially sought.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg delivered the 23-year-old’s sentence on Monday at a federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. Easterday was found guilty at jury trial in October on a half dozen counts including civil disorder, two counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer with a dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct in the Capitol building, engaging in a physical act of violence in the Capitol and parading, demonstrating and picketing inside the Capitol.
According to a sentencing memorandum from prosecutors, Easterday was among the first rioters to breach the East side of the Capitol. Driving from his home in Bonnieville, Kentucky to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally in support of Donald Trump near the Washington Monument, before finally descending on the Capitol, prosecutors say Easterday climbed a tree and hoisted a Confederate battle flag that he brought with him from home.
When he broke through metal barricades on the East Plaza, he did so “waving his Confederate battle flag high” as he rushed toward a set of stairs and pushed his way through the mob until he could get access to the East Rotunda doors.
Easterday would eventually unleash a torrent of chemical irritants at two officers after finding a canister of pepper spray near a top landing by the East Rotunda doors. Extending the canister at an arm’s length, he sprayed one U.S. Capitol Police Officer, Joshua Pollitt, right in his face, causing “partial blindness” for several hours as well “excruciating pain.”
After assaulting Pollitt, Easterday muscled his way through the crowd with fellow rioters, managed to find another can of pepper spray and unleashed it on another group of police protecting the rotunda doors. This time prosecutors said Easterday sprayed Officer Miguel Acevedo at close range.
Like Pollitt, Acevedo was partially blinded for hours.
When asking for his sentence, prosecutors urged the judge to consider that Easterday’s conduct was the “epitome of disrespect for the law.”
“As Judge Amy Berman Jackson stated at sentencing in United States v. Cronin, ‘We cannot ever act as if this was simply a political protest, simply an episode of trespassing in a federal building. What this was was an attack on our democracy itself and attack on the singular aspect of democracy that makes America America, and that’s the peaceful transfer of power,”” prosecutors wrote. “Here, Easterday attacked and injured two police officers simply because they were police officers enforcing the law and standing in his way. Moreover, he did so after proudly carrying and waving the Confederate battle flag, itself a symbol of treason, defiance of the law and insurrection.”
A Justice Department provided photo of the exterior of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, shows Isreal Easterday, highlighted by a yellow box in the exhibit, carrying a Confederate flag as he tries to breach the Capitol.
As he breached the Capitol, video footage showed Easterday also pulling other rioters inside, yanking them past police. Once inside, he roamed around for 13 minutes, according to court records. On Jan. 7, prosecutors said he began to wipe his Facebook clean of photos and texts from his time at the Capitol. Easterday, they said, had been reading the reports about arrests being made. His number didn’t come up until December 2022 when authorities arrested him in Florida.
The FBI said it identified Easterday in photos and videos from the Capitol by using his black “I [heart] Trump” beanie as its guide. Even when he took it off, investigators said, they were able to determine it was him, a statement of facts notes.
Inset: Justice Department provided photo depicting Isreal Easterday inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021./Background: DOJ-provided security footage shows Isreal Easterday, circled in yellow, entering the Capitol at 2:39 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021.
Ahead of sentencing, the Kentucky man’s public defender argued for leniency over 40-pages, saying that Easterday had a “sheltered upbringing in an Amish family in rural Kentucky” and that his “main source of information” was home-schooling until he was 14 before he started working for his father around their farm to gain “practical experience” for work down the line.
“He learned about religion from his family and everything he knew was filtered through the lens of his parents. He was not involved in or knowledgeable about politics,” attorney Geremy Kamens wrote.
Kamens asked Judge Boasberg to sentence his client to just 12 months and one day followed by a significant period of supervised release, though he did not specify how long. Kamens urged the judge to compare Easterday’s use of pepper spray to other cases involving similar charges where lower sentences were proposed for “more egregious conduct.”
Plus, the public defender argued, Easterday only came to the Capitol because he was tagging along with fellow Trump supporters, including an uncle. Kamens argued his client “plainly did not understand what the Confederate flag signified” nor what the “rebel flag” represented.
A review of court records shows Easterday attempted to file a motion for a new trial but was denied on April 8.
In addition to 30 months in prison, Easterday must pay $2,000 in restitution and commit himself to finishing 500 hours of community service.
Kevin Seefried, another man who carried a Confederate flag through the Capitol on Jan. 6, was sentenced last February to three years. Seefried has appealed and as Law&Crime reported last month, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden granted Seefried’s request to be released from prison pending his appeal, saying prosecutors provided no evidence to suggest Seefried poses a threat or that “events that led to the riot are reasonably likely to recur.”
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