MIAMI.- For his violent participation in the unrest in it Capitol from the United States, a man of Florida He was sentenced to five years in prison on Wednesday, according to court records.
Kenneth Bonawitz, 58, of Pompano Beach, Florida, pleaded guilty in August to three felony charges: civil disorder and assault on police. The Justice Department had requested a sentence of nearly six years for Bonawitz, who was arrested last January.
Bonawitz attended a political rally near the White House on January 6, 2021and then traveled on an overnight bus to Washington, D.C., along with other protesters, according to case documents.
Bonawitz was among the first to storm Upper West Plaza after the crowd overthrew a police line on the north side, prosecutors said.
According to the investigations, The man was allegedly carrying a 20-centimetre knife in his waist.which was confiscated by the agents, and jumped from a stage set up for Joe Biden’s inauguration, where he allegedly attacked two Capitol police officers.
Testimony of an officer assigned to the Capitol
One of the officers, Sergeant Federico Ruiz, was seriously injured in the neck, shoulder, knees and back. Ruiz, who retired last month, said Bonawitz ruined her life with his assault. “I thought he was going to die there,” Ruiz wrote in a letter to the judge.
After the knife was taken from him and he was released, Bonawitz apparently continued to assault four other police officers. He put one of them in a headlock and strangled him, according to court records.
“Bonawitz’s attacks on several agents were among the most serious that occurred that day“Deputy Prosecutor Sean McCauley said in a court document.
“Bonawitz’s attacks did not stop until police officers pushed him into the crowd a second time and applied a chemical agent to his face,” he added.
Federal Judge Jia Cobb sentenced Bonawitz to five years in prison and three years of probation, according to records.
More than 100 police officers were injured in the siege and some 1,200 people have been charged with federal crimes for the riots at the Capitol.
About 900 people have pleaded guilty or been sentenced. More than 750 have received sentences and almost 500 have gone to prison, according to data from The Associated Press.
Bonawitz is not accused of coordinating his Jan. 6 actions with other Proud Boys. But “accepted and fully embodied his extremist and anti-government ideology when he attacked six law enforcement officers that stood between a mob and the democratic process,” said the prosecutor.
Several leaders, members and associates of the Proud Boys have been arrested on charges from January 6.
A jury convicted that organization’s former national president, Enrique Tarrio, and three lieutenants accused of seditious conspiracy charges for a failed plot to forcibly stop the transfer of command to current President Joe Biden.
Source: AP
