The January 6 agitator, who allegedly attacked police officer Brian Sicknick with pepper spray, was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison.
Julian Khater, 33, of Somersey, New Jersey, pleaded guilty in 2022 to assaulting multiple officers with a dangerous weapon.
According to court records, the defendant beat at least two officers with a mace at point-blank range as a horde of rioters tore down metal police barricades on the west front of the Capitol.
The Washington DC medical examiner found that Sicknick died the next day of natural causes, but that day’s attack may have contributed to his condition. Also, Judge Thomas Hogan indicated that he could not punish Khater for causing the officer’s death.
Prior to receiving his sentence, the defendant addressed the court and stated that he has spent significant time researching, reading and praying.
“This has been a long, agonizing, but humiliating experience that has cost me dearly,” Khater told the judge.
Hogan called the defendant’s lack of apology to officers a “self-centered” approach. Although Khater said that his lawyer would have advised him not to apologize directly, and indicated that a civil case had been filed against him.
Dozens of Capitol Police officers attended the sentencing in support of their deceased colleague. Sicknick’s relatives, along with Officer Caroline Edwards, who was standing near the officer and was also attacked with maces by Khater, gave emotional statements in court about Sicknick’s death.
“I thought I would be happy when this day came, when justice was done,” Edwards explained, choking back tears as she tried to pinpoint the emotional trauma she experienced at the loss of her friend and colleague.
For her part, Sicknick’s mother addressed Khater, calling him an “animal” and explaining the perennial stress to which the entire family has been subjected, CNN reported.
“You are center stage in our recurring nightmare,” Gladys Sicknick said.
The defendant’s defense, Chad Seigel, called his client’s actions “a moment of cloudy judgment.”
“Her emotionally charged conduct was an aberration,” Seigel said.
Prosecutors asked for 90 months for what they described as a “cowardly and premeditated attack” by Khater against agents guarding the government compound. The judge decided the 80 months minus the 22 that he had already served.
Also read:
- Four Oath Keepers members found guilty of seditious conspiracy in storming the Capitol
- Joe Biden honors police officers and officials on the anniversary of the assault on the Capitol with the Presidential Medal for Citizens
- Donald Trump is sued for manslaughter for the death of a police officer after the assault on the Capitol