On the second anniversary of the January 6, 2021, riot, one of the first rioters to enter the US Capitol that day was sentenced to 46 months behind bars.
In handing down the sentence, District Judge Timothy Kelly said the events of January 6 were a “national disgrace” noting that the mob “snapped our previously unbroken tradition of a peaceful transfer of power. We can’t get that back.”
It’s hard not to become numb to it now, after two years,” Kelly said of the events of January 6 during the sentencing, “not (to) let, as time goes on, the seriousness of it to wear off.”
Jerod Wade Hughes pleaded guilty in August to obstructing an official proceeding. According to his plea agreement, Hughes was the eighth rioter to enter the Capitol, climbing in through a broken window. He then helped another rioter kick open the Senate wing door, his plea agreement says, allowing more of the mob to enter and marking the first major breach of the building.
According to prosecutor Emily Allen, Hughes texted others after the Capitol attack saying that if they had more in the mob they could have held the building, messages which Kelly called “chilling.”
Citing one of Hughes’ messages from after the riot, Kelly said that “we would have been in a constitutional crisis if what you wanted to have happened, happened.”
Hughes’ defense attorney, Jonathan Zucker, argued that Hughes “was not motivated by the normal factors. He truly believed he was acting like a patriot” and his actions represented a “misguided attempt to perform a civic good.”
Hughes was behind other rioters who chased US Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up flights of stairs near the Senate chamber, according to the plea agreement. He then confronted a line of police officers in the building, Allen said, “screaming with venom” at the officers while senators were “just feet away.”
Judge Kelly said that Hughes’ words to the officers amounted to a threat, noting that Hughes yelled “you don’t want this” at the officers.
Hughes eventually made his way to the Senate chamber and rifled through papers on abandoned senators’ desks, videos of the event show.
“I want to get this behind me and get back to my family,” Hughes said to Kelly before he was sentenced. He also apologized to “my country, Congress, police officers,” and specifically officer Goodman.
Hughes’s brother, Joshua, who drove up with Hughes and was with him during the attack, was sentenced in November to 38 months behind bars.