WASHINGTON — The very first rioter to breach the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison Tuesday after he told a judge he still believes Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election "to this day."
Michael Sparks, who spent the weeks leading up to the Capitol attack consuming and regurgitating right-wing lies about the last presidential election, was sentenced to 53 months in federal prison at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, who also oversaw the seditious conspiracy trial of members of the Proud Boys.
“I am an American citizen who believes to this day that we are in tyranny,” Sparks told Kelly, adding that he believes the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was “taken from the American people.”
Kelly emphasized that Sparks had the right to believe whatever conspiracy theory he wished no matter how divorced it was from reality but that he did not have the right to storm the Capitol.
“I don’t really think you appreciate the full gravity of what happened that day and frankly the full seriousness of what you did,” Kelly said, explaining why he went over the sentencing guidelines of 15 to 21 months.
"A lot of us would like to see our country grapple with different challenges differently," said Kelly, a Trump appointee, but that did not give people license to behave as Sparks did. Given his support from the community and his lack of criminal history, Kelly said there "isn't any obvious explanation" for what Sparks did on Jan. 6, 2021.
"What happened on Jan. 6 just cannot happen again," Kelly said, saying rioters had interfered in a process "foundational to our country's governance."
"What a dangerous precedent Jan. 6 set. What a Pandora's box it opened," he said. America had a "perfect score" for peaceful transfers of power before Jan. 6, he noted, adding: "We can't get that back. It's gone."
Sparks’ case was complicated by a Supreme Court decision in June that affected the charge of obstruction of an official proceeding, which had been used against hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants. Prosecutors dropped that charge before sentencing, but Kelly said he was able to take the conduct presented at trial into consideration, and he said it was clear that Sparks wanted to obstruct the counting of the Electoral College votes.
Prosecutors pointed to evidence that Sparks had proclaimed Trump would win decisively in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
“Trump will win by a landslide. It won’t even be close,” he wrote even as election results were still being gathered, predicting that Trump would secure 293 electoral votes (he got 232, losing to Joe Biden's 306).
After Biden's win, Sparks — like Trump — had trouble grappling with the loss, and his rhetoric got increasingly heated as Jan. 6 approached.
“Drag these clowns out of office,” he wrote in late December 2020, according to evidence presented at trial. “How about we the people drag you out by your face,” he wrote on Christmas Eve, posting images of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., then the House speaker, and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, of New York.
Just before the attack, Sparks said that he wanted "civil war" and that he was willing to die for Trump. Even long after Jan. 6, Sparks continued to believe that the proof of a massive election-stealing scheme was just around the corner.
“They are trying to hide Everything but there are a ton of court cases going on,” he wrote on Jan. 9, 2022. “I truly believe they are going to expose the fraudulent election.”
More than 1,400 defendants have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, and more than 1,000 have been convicted. Many Jan. 6 defendants have received probationary sentences, but more than 500 have received sentences ranging from a few days behind bars up to 22 years in federal prison, which was the sentence Kelly imposed on former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio.
Many Jan. 6 defendants have said they expect Trump to win in November and free them from prison, including violent rioter David Dempsey, who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison this month. Trump has indicated his support for pardons and referred to Jan. 6 rioters as "hostages" and "unbelievable patriots."
