Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
QAnon Follower Who Chased Officer on Jan. 6 Gets 5 Years
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 2 years ago on
December 16, 2022

Share

An Iowa construction worker and QAnon follower was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, when he led a crowd chasing a police officer who diverted rioters away from lawmakers.

Wearing a T-shirt celebrating the conspiracy theory with his arms spread, Douglas Jensen became part of one of the most memorable images from the riot.

As he handed down the sentence, Judge Timothy Kelly said he wasn’t sure Jensen understood the seriousness of a violent attack in which he played a “big role.”

“It snapped our previously unbroken tradition of peaceful transfer of power. We can’t get that back,” Kelly said. “I wish I could say I had evidence you understood this cannot be repeated.”

Jensen was convicted at trial of seven counts, including felony charges that he obstructed Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote and that he assaulted or interfered with police officers during the siege. His sentence also includes three years of supervised release and a $2,000 fine.

He gave a brief statement to the judge, saying that he wanted to return to “being a family man and my normal life before I got involved with politics.”

Jensen scaled a retaining wall and entered through a broken window so he could be one of the first people to storm the Capitol that day, Kelly said. He led a group that chased Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up a staircase. He would later re-entered the building and scuffle with police.

“Doug Jensen wanted to be the poster boy of the insurrection,” prosecutor Emily Allen said.

Jensen wore a T-shirt with a large “Q” on it because he wanted the conspiracy theory to get credit for what happened that day, his defense attorney Christopher Davis said.

Davis said Jensen’s own “childhood of horrors” influenced his later faith in the baseless belief that former President Donald Trump was secretly fighting against enemies in the “deep state” and a child sex trafficking ring run by satanic pedophiles and cannibals.

It also includes the apocalyptic prophesy that “The Storm” was coming and would usher in mass arrests and executions of Trump’s foes, including then-Vice President Mike Pence, who Trump would deride that day as lacking courage.

Davis has argued Jensen was dressed as a “walking advertisement for QAnon” and not intending to attack the Capitol. He did not physically hurt people or damage anything inside the Capitol, Davis said, and many friends and family members wrote letters to the judge on his behalf.

Goodman’s quick thinking that day — to divert the rioters away from the Senate and then find backup — avoided “tremendous bloodshed,” Capitol Police Inspector Thomas Lloyd said Friday.

Pence was presiding over the Senate on Jan. 6 as a joint session of Congress was convened to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. Before the riot, Trump and his allies spread the falsehood that Pence somehow could have overturned the election results.

Approximately 900 people have been charged with federal crimes for their conduct on Jan. 6. More than 400 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor offenses. Sentences for the rioters have ranged from probation for low-level misdemeanor offenses to 10 years in prison for a man who used a metal flagpole to assault an officer.

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

This French Bulldog Is So Fetch: Meet Toaster Strudel

DON'T MISS

The Fed Expects to Cut Rates More Slowly in 2025. What That Could Mean for Mortgages, Debt and More

DON'T MISS

New California Voter ID Ban Puts Conservative Cities at Odds With State

DON'T MISS

Big Lots Holds Going-Out-of-Business Sales After Deal to Save Company Fails

DON'T MISS

University of California Campuses Resolve Discrimination Complaints Stemming From Gaza Protests

DON'T MISS

The Latest: House Approves New Government Funding Bill

DON'T MISS

Rams’ Matthew Stafford and Jets’ Aaron Rodgers Collide in Matchup of Familiar Foes

DON'T MISS

‘Embarrassing’ Night for Stephen Curry in 51-Point Loss at Memphis

DON'T MISS

Another Record for LeBron James in Lakers’ Win Over Kings

DON'T MISS

Meet Amy Allen, the Songwriter Behind the Music Stuck in Your Head

UP NEXT

US Deportations Surge to Highest Level in a Decade Before Trump Takes Office

UP NEXT

Elon Musk Considers Funding Nigel Farage’s Populist Party, a Move That Could Shake Up UK Politics

UP NEXT

Appeals Court Removes Prosecutor Fani Willis From Georgia Election Case Against Trump and Others

UP NEXT

US Repatriates 3 Guantanamo Bay Detainees, Including One Held 17 Years Without Charge

UP NEXT

What’s Known About the Brazen Bombing That Killed a Top Russian General in Moscow

UP NEXT

Trump’s Lawyers Allege Juror Misconduct in Latest Bid to Get His Hush Money Conviction Dismissed

UP NEXT

US Senator Says Mysterious Drones Spotted in New Jersey Should Be ‘Shot Down, if Necessary’

UP NEXT

Trump Is Named Time’s Person of the Year and Rings the New York Stock Exchange’s Opening Bell

UP NEXT

Biden Commutes Roughly 1,500 Sentences and Pardons 39 People in Biggest Single-Day Act of Clemency

UP NEXT

Trump Invites China’s Xi to His Inauguration Even as He Threatens Massive Tariffs on Beijing

Big Lots Holds Going-Out-of-Business Sales After Deal to Save Company Fails

15 hours ago

University of California Campuses Resolve Discrimination Complaints Stemming From Gaza Protests

15 hours ago

The Latest: House Approves New Government Funding Bill

16 hours ago

Rams’ Matthew Stafford and Jets’ Aaron Rodgers Collide in Matchup of Familiar Foes

17 hours ago

‘Embarrassing’ Night for Stephen Curry in 51-Point Loss at Memphis

18 hours ago

Another Record for LeBron James in Lakers’ Win Over Kings

18 hours ago

Meet Amy Allen, the Songwriter Behind the Music Stuck in Your Head

18 hours ago

Netflix Signs US Broadcast Deal With FIFA for the Women’s World Cup in 2027 and 2031

18 hours ago

Clovis Residents Can Draw the City’s Next Election Map

18 hours ago

All Netflix Wants for Christmas Is No Streaming Problems for Its First NFL Games

18 hours ago

This French Bulldog Is So Fetch: Meet Toaster Strudel

Toaster Strudel, a 3-to-4-year-old French bulldog, isn’t your average pup. This bundle of joy has a personality as vibrant as her name. With...

29 minutes ago

Toaster Strudel, a cheerful French bulldog with a love for people and dogs, is ready to bring joy to her forever home. (Mell's Mutts)
29 minutes ago

This French Bulldog Is So Fetch: Meet Toaster Strudel

3 hours ago

The Fed Expects to Cut Rates More Slowly in 2025. What That Could Mean for Mortgages, Debt and More

4 hours ago

New California Voter ID Ban Puts Conservative Cities at Odds With State

15 hours ago

Big Lots Holds Going-Out-of-Business Sales After Deal to Save Company Fails

15 hours ago

University of California Campuses Resolve Discrimination Complaints Stemming From Gaza Protests

16 hours ago

The Latest: House Approves New Government Funding Bill

Rams
17 hours ago

Rams’ Matthew Stafford and Jets’ Aaron Rodgers Collide in Matchup of Familiar Foes

18 hours ago

‘Embarrassing’ Night for Stephen Curry in 51-Point Loss at Memphis

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend