Colorado man gets jail time for assaulting officer during January 6 riot | News

A Colorado man was sentenced to prison Thursday for assaulting an officer and disrupting Congress during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.



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A viral photo from the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol shows Littleton resident Patrick Montgomery (circled) in the Senate chamber.



The United States Attorney’s Office said 51-year-old Patrick Montgomery of Littleton was sentenced to 37 months in prison and 36 months of supervised release after pleading guilty to assaulting law enforcement while disrupting a joint session of the United States Congress .

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said Montgomery was identified by three tipsters who spotted him in videos and social media posts from the Senate chambers.



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Patrick Montgomery’s Facebook post.



According to the criminal complaint filed in the US District Court in Washington DC, Montgomery posted a series of updates to his social media accounts showing his trip to Washington DC, scenes outside the Capitol and footage inside the Senate chambers.

According to court documents, during Montgomery’s trip to Washington, DC, he met with co-defendants Brady Knowlton and Gary Wilson at the Yours Truly hotel. The three men then walked to the “Stop the Steal” rally near the Washington Monument and the Ellipse.

After the meeting, the three men went to the West Front of the U.S. Capitol and breached a restricted perimeter, according to court documents.



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Facebook post from Patrick Montgomery from January 6, 2021.



Just after 2 p.m., Montgomery grabbed an officer’s baton and tried to wrestle it away from him. During the altercation, Mongomery kicked the police officer in the chest, documents said.

After the scuffle, the three men entered the Capitol through doors with an “emergency exit only” sign as an alarm sounded and people screamed.



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A social media post from Patrick Montgomery on January 6, 2021.



“We stormed the Senate,” Montgomery wrote on his Facebook page. “Open that room door for transparency!”

Court documents show Montgomery and his co-defendants entered the Senate gallery around 2:43 p.m. and confronted a U.S. Capitol Police officer before leaving the building about 10 minutes later.

One of the tipsters reported Montgomery to D.C. police and the FBI on January 7, telling Montgomery in an email that he had done so.

“I’m not a scaredy cat and I’m not running from anything,” Montgomery responded. “I am so deeply under the attention of the nation’s top federal defense attorneys, just in case you crying boys don’t want what it takes to defend our freedom against these corrupt politicians.”

Montgomery continued: “I did not storm the castle by force. My group was let in peacefully by the police to whom we spoke respectfully. We arrived and left peacefully before the anarchist and Antifa showed up to break S***. and are crooks.”

The FBI arrested Montgomery in Colorado on January 17, 2021.

Montgomery is one of 1,532 people charged in the Jan. 6 riots, and one of 571 people charged with assaulting or obstructing law enforcement, which authorities say is a misdemeanor.