Ex-police officer who joined Capitol riot receives a reduced prison sentence

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former Virginia police officer who stormed the U.S. Capitol received a reduced prison sentence of six years on Wednesday, making him one of the first beneficiaries of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited the government’s use of a federal obstruction law.

More than two years ago, former Rocky Mount Police Sgt. Thomas Robertson originally was sentenced to seven years and three months of imprisonment for joining a mob’s Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Prosecutors urged U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper to preserve the original sentence, but the judge imposed the shorter prison term Wednesday after agreeing to dismiss Robertson’s conviction for obstructing the congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.

Robertson was the first Capitol riot defendant to be resentenced after the dismissal of a conviction for the obstruction charge at the center of the Supreme Court’s ruling in June, according to Justice Department prosecutors. The high court ruled 6-3 that a charge of obstructing an official proceeding must include proof that a defendant tried to tamper with or destroy documents — a distinction that applies to few Jan. 6 criminal cases.

“I assume I won’t be seeing you a third time,” the judge told Robertson at the end of his second sentencing hearing.

Robertson, who declined to address the court at his first sentencing hearing, told the judge on Wednesday that he looks forward to returning home and rebuilding his life after prison.

“I realize the positions that I was taking on that day were wrong,” he said of Jan. 6. “I’m standing before you very sorry for what occurred on that day.”

A jury convicted Robertson of all six counts in his indictment, including