A man who told his wife — and a federal jury — that he had “fun” at the US Capitol riot has been sentenced to six years in prison for attacking police as he stormed the building.
Markus Maly’s prison sentence is significantly lower than the punishment sought by prosecutors for his role in the insurrection on January 6 2021. The Justice Department had recommended a prison sentence of 15 years and eight months.
A prosecutor described Maly, 49, as a “lifelong criminal” with 33 previous convictions, including two for battery of a law enforcement officer, but the judge who sentenced him noted that most of his crimes date back to his 20s.
Maly, a flooring installer from Virginia, told US District Judge Amit Mehta that he regretted travelling to Washington and following the mob of Donald Trump’s supporters to the Capitol, but he insisted he merely “occupied space” in the crowd and denied attacking and pepper-spraying police.
“I went to a rally. That’s what I did,” he told the judge.
The judge said jurors had ample evidence to convict Maly of assaulting police.
“It’s not that you were there and ‘occupying space’. It’s that you did these things and kept doing them that day,” the judge told him.
Prosecutors said Maly was one of many Capitol rioters who tried to profit from their notoriety, portraying themselves as patriots, martyrs or political prisoners as they solicited donations from supporters.
While prosecutors acknowledge that defendants have a right to raise money for legal defences, they are increasingly asking judges to impose fines on top of prison terms to claw back donations used for personal expenses.
Maly has raised more than $16,500 through a donation page, referring to himself as a “January 6 POW”. Prosecutors asked the judge to fine him an amount commensurate with his fundraising haul, noting that he had a public defender and did not owe any legal fees.
The judge declined to impose a fine. He said Maly’s fundraising activities may have been “unseemly” but he questioned whether there was a legal basis for clawing back the money.
Maly told his trial that participating in the Capitol riot was “fun” for him.
He also described the events “fun” and “awesome” in messages sent to his wife and others.
“Maly admitted to being proud of what he had done at the Capitol and that he had bragged about it,” prosecutor Stephen Rancourt wrote in a court filing.
“Despite seeing police officers assaulted, injured and distressed on January 6, and knowing that it was a bad day for members of Congress and the police officers who had to live through the riot, Maly reiterated that his experience that day was ‘fun’.”
The judge at Maly’s trial had previously handed down the longest sentence for a Capitol riot case: 18 years for Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted of orchestrating a violent plot to keep Mr Trump in the White House after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden.
Maly has been held in jail since a jury convicted him in December of all eight charges against him, including felony counts of civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding police using a dangerous weapon.
On the morning of the riot, Maly took a bus from his home in Fincastle, Virginia, to Washington to attend Mr Trump’s Stop the Steal rally. He later joined the mob that attacked police on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace, one of the most violent clashes of the day.
He sprayed a chemical, possibly pepper spray, at Metropolitan Police Department Officer Christopher Boyle as he and other officers retreated into a tunnel and guarded an entrance.
Maly passed a spray canister from one rioter to another, joined a coordinated push against police and left the tunnel with a stolen riot shield as a “trophy”, Mr Rancourt said.
Maly was charged and tried with Peter Schwartz and Jeffrey Scott Brown. Schwartz passed the spray canister to Maly, who passed it to Brown. The jurors who convicted Maly also found Schwartz and Brown guilty of related charges.
The judge sentenced Schwartz last month to 14 years and two months in prison, the longest for a January 6 case before Rhodes, and sentenced Brown in April to four years and six months.
Prosecutors say Maly lied when he told the court he only showed a canister to Boyle but did not spray the officer.
“Maly claimed that the stream of liquid coming out of the canister was actually a piece of fringe on his hat. However, his hat didn’t have a fringe,” Mr Rancourt wrote.
Defence lawyer Benjamin Schiffelbein said Maly believed the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Mr Trump.
“He fervently believed that he was protesting in the name of liberty and freedom. His motives, however (factually) wrong they may have been, were based in values this country celebrates,” Mr Schiffelbein wrote.
“What is more American than fervently defending democracy — even from one’s own government — and perhaps especially then?”
More than 100 police officers were injured during the riot, and more than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes. Over 500 of them have been sentenced, with more than half getting terms of imprisonment, according to an Associated Press review of court records.
