Washington—A Southern California man who attacked police with pepper spray during a break-in at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison, federal authorities said.
Jeffrey Scott Brown, 56, of Santa Ana, California, received a sentence of 54 months in federal prison on felony and misdemeanor charges related to the mass assault by supporters of former President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice said Friday. Justice of the United States in a press release.
More than 1,000 people have been arrested, including more than 320 who have been charged with assaulting police officers or preventing them from doing their jobs, the Justice Department added. Trump supporters tried that day to stop Congress from certifying the results of the presidential election in favor of Democrat Joe Biden over Trump, a Republican.
Brown and two other defendants in the case were found guilty in December.
Sentencing for Peter J. Schwartz of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, is scheduled for May. It is unclear why Markus Maly, of Fincastle, Va., was not sentenced Friday as scheduled.
Prosecutors had sought a 70-month prison sentence for Brown, who they say slipped in front of the makeshift police line and sprayed officers with a stolen can of pepper spray handed to him by Schwartz.
Brown’s attorney, Samuel C. Moore, was seeking a 40-month prison sentence, according to official documents.
Moore said the incident lasted “less than 10 minutes of Brown’s life” and the alleged pepper spray “did not make contact with any specific victim.” Still, Moore wrote, Brown acknowledges that he should never have been in the Capitol tunnel that day and takes responsibility for his being there.
