Jan. 6 rioter caught in a woman’s Bumble dating app sting sentenced to prison

WASHINGTON — A Donald Trump supporter who assaulted law enforcement officers with bear spray and a metal whip — and who was arrested thanks to a woman’s sting operation on the dating app Bumble — was sentenced to just over six years in prison on Wednesday.

Andrew Taake was arrested in 2021 and pleaded guilty in December to assaulting officers using a deadly or dangerous weapon. Having previously been convicted of a felony — and having been out on bond on a charge of soliciting a minor at the time of the Capitol attack — Taake was one of a small number of Jan. 6 defendants who were held in pretrial detention.

Prosecutors sought a sentence of 6.5 years in federal prison for Taake. A court filing also indicated that prosecutors would highlight a disciplinary investigation that charged Taake “with fighting with another inmate on December 14, 2023” at the jail in Washington where Taake has been held.

Taake was sentenced Wednesday to 74 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols — a Trump appointee who questioned the use of an obstruction of an official proceeding charge in Jan. 6 cases, an issue that is now before the Supreme Court.

Nichols said that Taake’s actions were “as serious as any other Jan. 6 defendant I sentenced” and that “others must be deterred” from committing similar conduct in the future. Bear spraying officers and carrying a metal whip, Nichols said, “is the farthest thing from First Amendment expression.”

Taake had been set to be sentenced in April, but there were complications after Nichols suggested in court that he thought an additional sentencing enhancement should apply, even though the government is barred by the terms of the plea deal from explicitly advocating for it.

Nichols relied upon a