Militia group member sentenced to 5 years in prison for Capitol riot plot

WASHINGTON (AP) — A militia group member who communicated with other far-right extremists while they stormed the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in prison.

For weeks before the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, Kentucky electrician Dan Edwin Wilson planned with others to attack the Capitol and stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, according to federal prosecutors.

Wilson told U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich that he regrets entering the Capitol that day but “got involved with good intentions.”

“Our country was in turmoil,” he said. “I believe it still is.”

The judge said there is “no question” that Wilson intended to interfere with the congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 electoral victory over Trump.

“He’s not being punished for what he said that day. His comments are reflexive of his intent,” the judge said.

Prosecutors recommended a five-year prison sentence for Wilson, who pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to impede or injure police officers. He also pleaded guilty to illegally possessing firearms at his home.

Wilson, 48, communicated with members of the far-right Oath Keepers extremist group and adherents of the antigovernment Three Percenters movement as he marched to the Capitol. Wilson has identified as an Oath Keeper and as a member of the Gray Ghost Partisan Rangers, a Three Percenter militia, according to prosecutors.

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