Capitol attacker ‘caught up in the madness’ gets more than 5 years in prison
A Donald Trump supporter who pounded police with poles during the 2021 Capitol attack was sentenced to 63 months behind bars Tuesday, tied for the longest sentence handed out to Jan. 6 rioters.
Mark Ponder, 56, will have more than five years to think about his decision to assault law enforcement officers protecting elected officials from an angry mob hellbent on keeping Trump in office following the former president’s election loss. No one has so far been handed more time behind bars in connection to the insurrection than Ponder, who is tied with one other person for the longest sentence.
In this image from a Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer's body-worn video camera, and contained in the statement of facts supporting an arrest warrant for Mark Ponder, Ponder talks to police after being arrested on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan didn’t buy the Washington, D.C., man’s claim that he “wasn’t thinking that day,” and gave him a sentence three months longer than what prosecutors had suggested.
“He was intent on attacking and injuring police officers,” the judge said in U.S. District Court in Washington. “This was not a protest.”
An attorney for the defendant argued his client got “caught up in the madness that was Jan. 6.”
In this image from a Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer's body-worn video camera, and contained in the statement of facts supporting an arrest warrant for Mark Ponder, Ponder strikes an officer with a pole on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Chutkan countered that Ponder was in fact “leading the charge” against law enforcement.
Ponder pleaded guilty in April to breaking one pole on an officer’s shield, then running into the mob to retrieve a more sturdy red, white and blue one he used to assault two other officers. Ponder then joined up with a group battling police in a U.S. Capitol tunnel. He was later arrested by FBI agents.
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In this image from a Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer's body-worn video camera, and contained in the statement of facts supporting an arrest warrant for Mark Ponder, Ponder strikes an officer with a pole on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.
Ponder’s attorney argued his client, who prosecutors said has an extensive criminal history that includes bank robbery, only intended to push the lie the election had been stolen verbally, but became swept up in the momentum of the day’s events.
Well over 800 Trump supporters have been charged with federal crimes for their involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Ponder’s sentence matches that of 54-year-old Florida man Robert Palmer, who cried while telling the same judge he was “really, really ashamed” of his actions. Palmer, who threw a wood plank and a fire extinguisher at officers defending the Capitol, wrote in a letter to the court that he had been duped by people with “great power” into falsely believing the election was rigged.
With News Wire Services
