A Florida man gets the stiffest sentence yet of Capitol riot cases

Many of the January 6 rioters have been given lighter sentences or faced misdemeanor charges. But Florida resident Robert Scott Palmer, who attacked police officers with a fire extinguisher at the U.S. Capitol Building that day, has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison — which, according to HuffPost reporter Ryan J. Reilly, is the stiffest sentence that a Capitol rioter has received so far.

Palmer expressed remorse in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who handed down the 63-month sentence. Saying that he had been “lied to” by former President Donald Trump, Palmer wrote, “They kept spitting out the false narrative about a stolen election and how it was ‘our duty’ to stand up to tyranny. Little did I realize that they were the tyrannical ones desperate to hold on to power at any cost even by creating the chaos they knew would happen with such rhetoric.”

Appearing in court, Palmer told Chutkan he was “really, really ashamed of what I did.”

Earlier this year, however, Palmer expressed very different views — telling HuffPost that President Joe Biden’s administration was unfairly trying to “vilify the patriots” who stormed the Capitol Building on January 6. And in a January 12 post, Palmer wrote, “In the event of a Civil War, I’m not afraid of the 81 Million Biden Voters. Half are dead and don’t exist!”

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