A New Jersey man was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison on Friday for shooting pepper spray into the face of Officer Brian D. Sicknick during the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The hearing was attended by a large number of uniformed police officers.
One of the heartbreaking cases involving Sicknick, who died a day after being doused with pepper spray in the chaos outside the Capitol, was resolved when Julian Khater was sentenced to 80 years in prison.
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With the help of the government, another man who had been accused of participating in the assault of Sicknick, George Tanios, pled guilty in July to misdemeanour charges. On Friday, Tanios was also scheduled to receive his sentence.
Although it was initially reported that Sicknick had passed away as a result of his wounds, an autopsy revealed that he had actually died of natural causes, having suffered several strokes unrelated to the pro-Trump violence.
However, in court documents, prosecutors noted that the medical examiner for Washington concluded that Sicknick had interacted with rioters on January 6 and that “all that transpired played a role in his condition.”
Perhaps fifty of Sicknick’s Capitol Police coworkers showed up to the sentencing hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., creating an unusual spectacle that forced a couple dozen people to relocate to an overflow room. Several members of Sicknick’s family gave heartfelt statements during the hearing.
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The victim’s mother, Gladys Sicknick, said that Khater had attacked her son “like he was an animal,” and that she did not think the punishment was “enough in her eyes.”
