A federal judge Friday ordered a southern Illinois couple to each spend 14 days in jail for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. District Senior Judge Thomas Hogan said he would allow Christopher and Tina Logsdon, of Sesser, to serve their sentences intermittently, on weekends. He said Tina Logsdon could start serving her time after her husband finished his sentence.
But the judge also put both of them on probation for three years — noting that it would last until after the next presidential election.
Hogan stressed to Tina Logsdon, who gave a long speech about her perceived state of the country, that she’d have to keep her probation in mind “no matter how upset you get.”
He also told Tina Logsdon to perform 60 hours of community service.
Christopher Logsdon wrote in a recent letter to the judge that he and his wife believed ahead of the riot “that the Election was stolen from the best president our country has ever had.”
In an apparent reference to then-President-elect Joe Biden, federal prosecutors allege that Tina Logsdon wrote in a November 2020 Facebook post, “You can not [sic] tell me that over half the USA voted for this pedophile…. He def dont [sic] need to be President he really needs to be hanging by the neck from the nearest tree. Pedophile style. With two in the head. Sorry not sorry.”
Tina Logsdon plans to serve as an election judge in November, according to her husband’s letter. She told the judge Friday that she has “no ill will toward any of our government.”
However, she said her actions on Jan. 6, 2021, could be traced back to the fatal 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, repeatedly saying people were “left to die” by then-President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Hogan later told her he was “sorry that you have such a depressed view about our country, and somewhat not in accordance with the evidence.”
After touching on several other topics, Tina Logsdon also mentioned that she was not allowed to hold her mother’s hand when she died. Her husband wrote in his letter that it was due to COVID-19 regulations.
Christopher Logsdon told the judge in his letter that he now realizes entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, “was a terrible mistake.”
“We had no right to enter that sacred building,” he wrote in his letter. “We should have stayed outside.”
The Logsdons pleaded guilty in July to misdemeanor parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building. Christopher Logsdon, 48, is a stationary engineer and Tina Logsdon, 41, is a convenience store manager, records show.
They entered the Capitol just as then-Vice President Mike Pence and other members of Congress were evacuating, spent about a half-hour in the building and entered the lobby of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, according to the feds.
Christopher Logsdon’s attorney, Kira Anne West, pointed in a court memo to “the enormous influence the President, the media, and the lack of accurate and truthful information played in the months leading up to January 6, 2021.”
“Mr. Logsdon believed what he read on the internet and heard from the President himself — that the election had been stolen,” West wrote.
Tina Logsdon insisted in July that she was the one who wanted to go to the Capitol, and her husband followed her. Ahead of Friday’s sentencing hearing, her attorney told the judge she would accept a longer period behind bars if it meant her husband could avoid jail altogether.
The Logsdons are among 32 known Illinois residents charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Five have now been sentenced to short periods of incarceration. Roughly 900 people have been arrested nationwide.
