from The Epoch Times:
Ryan Taylor Nichols, a Marine Corps veteran and disaster-rescue specialist who argued that post-traumatic stress drove his behavior at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, was sentenced on May 2 to more than five years in prison and fined $200,000 for assaulting police and obstruction of an official proceeding.
It was the largest fine issued in a Jan. 6 criminal case.
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Judge Lamberth also ordered Mr. Nichols to serve 36 months of supervised release and pay $2,000 in restitution.
Prosecutors sought an upward departure from federal sentencing guidelines in asking for an 83-month prison sentence. The Department of Justice stressed Mr. Nichols’s use of pepper spray on police and his incendiary rhetoric before, during, and after Jan. 6.
Mr. Nichols argued for time served after 28 months in custody, citing his severe PTSD and “horrific prison conditions” at the District of Columbia jail as major mitigating factors.
“Ryan Nichols is a good guy who made a bad decision on January 6. He’s paid his debt in the most cruel and unusual way possible,” defense attorney Joseph D. McBride told The Epoch Times. “The fact that he’s got to go back to jail for any period of time sickens me to my stomach.”
Mr. McBride said despite not objecting to the sentencing calculation made by the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services System, the DOJ complained to Judge Lamberth on May 2 that an error needed correcting that would bump up Mr. Nichols’s sentencing range.
The judge allowed the last-minute change, Mr. McBride said.
