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U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said she hasn’t grown numb to the violent scenes of Jan. 6 that are routinely shown in her courtroom.
“I’m horrified every single time,” she said before sentencing a U.S. Marine Corps veteran in February to more than three years prison.
That man, Michael Foy, traveled to Washington alone from his Michigan home on the morning of Jan. 6. He posed for a photo in front of the Washington monument with an American flag wrapped around his shoulders and a “TRUMP 2020” flag attached to a hockey stick in his hand.
He would later use that hockey stick to attack officers in one of the most violent scenes captured on camera as the mob battled for hours with police for control of a Capitol entrance.
He wildly swung the stick at officers at least 11 times in 16 seconds, while other rioters attacked police with a crutch, flagpoles, and other makeshift weapons during an explosion of violence at mouth of the Lower West Terrace Tunnel. Earlier, he picked up a sharpened metal pole and hurled it like a spear at police.
Foy served in the Marine Corps from 2015 until June 2020, working as a heavy equipment mechanic and attaining the rank of corporal before he was honorably discharged.
At his sentencing hearing, his lawyer called her client's conduct “a complete aberration," and cited mental health struggles such as post-traumatic stress disorder she said made him particularly susceptible to aggressive behavior at the Capitol.
After leaving the Marines, he hit “rock bottom," and meanwhile "around him, all he heard was about how America was dying and only Trump could save America; everything was going to hell,” his lawyer said.
Before the judge handed down his sentence, Foy apologized to the officers he attacked and “to my country.”
“After three years of reflection, I only want to make this right,” he told the judge.
Chutkan ultimately handed down a punishment far lighter than the eight years prosecutors were seeking — which she called “unreasonable." She applauded the progress Foy had made since his release from jail, telling him he seemed already on the “path to rehabilitation.” But, she said there needed to be consequences — not because of his political beliefs but because of his actions.
“I do not care who you believe should have won the presidency,” said Chutkan, who's also overseeing the 2020 election interference case against former President Donald Trump in Washington.
“I don’t care whether you believe the election was stolen or not. What I care about is what you did, because a whole lot of people, millions and millions of people, felt the same way you did, and they didn’t come to the Capitol and storm the Capitol, and they didn’t assault law enforcement officers."
