First Coast man near fatal shooting during U.S. Capitol riot sentenced to 75 days in jail

A Northeast Florida man will spend 75 days behind bars for his part in last year’s U.S. Capitol riot by people challenging President Joe Biden’s election, federal court records show.

Jeffrey Register could have been sentenced to up to six months in jail for parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, the single misdemeanor charge he pleaded guilty to in October.

Deciding a fitting sentence, announced Thursday in federal court in Washington, depended partly on which of two narratives U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly accepted about Register’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, melee.

The 39-year-old warehouse worker was part of a crowd gathered in hallways outside the U.S. House of Representatives meeting chamber shortly before a police officer shot and killed a rioter trying to slip through a window in a barricaded door.

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The rioter, Ashli Babbitt, was one of five people who died during or shortly after the riot, which temporarily shut down action by Congress to certify the election results.

A prosecutor who wanted Register locked up for five months argued before Thursday’s sentencing that his behavior “arguably contributed to the circumstances” surrounding Babbitt’s death.

Assistant U.S. Attorney William Dreher contended in December that Register, whose home is listed on court records as being in both Jacksonville and Nassau County, “actively led others within the building, by waving them forward” to the door where Babbitt was shot.

But Register’s lawyer told the judge last month that argument was “thoroughly disingenuous,” and that Babbitt passed Register on her way to that door before he waved anyone that way.

When the shooting happened, Register was in a restroom, the defense lawyer said.

“Emerging from the restroom quickly, Mr. Register saw people standing over a body,” Assistant Federal Public Defender Cara Halverson wrote in a memo arguing her client deserved probation. “He heard others scream, ‘They shot her! They killed her!’ Panicked and feeling the gravity of chaos around him, Mr. Register found the nearest exit and left the building.”

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Halverson told the judge Register is a hard-working family man who was fired for being charged in connection with the riot, though he later found another job at a distribution company.

Halverson argued her client had been “fed lies and disingenuous directions by people that should have known better” during a rally for former President Donald Trump just before the Capitol was breached

“He entered the building, but his unlawful entrance cannot, and should not, be conflated with the many other, wider, failures that occurred that day. Arguably, the former president, the rally’s organizers and speakers, and other nefarious, organized groups contributed to the chaos and are greatly more culpable for what happened on January 6,” the defense lawyer argued.

Besides the jail time, Kelly ordered Register to pay $500 as restitution. Prosecutors dropped three other charges as part of Register’s plea deal.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: U.S. Capitol riot: Florida man near Babbitt shooting gets 75 days