Pennsylvania

left-of-center2012

(34,195 posts) Wed Mar 16, 2022, 08:23 AM Mar 2022

Capitol rioter from Pa bragged he'd 'do it again', asks for probation; feds want jail

The government says Samuel Fox of Westmoreland County, Pa, who stormed the U.S. Capitol and later said he’d “do it again, fight me,” deserves to be locked up for a month for what he did. Fox, 32, of Mount Pleasant, will be sentenced on Friday in the District of Columbia. He’s one of about two dozen people from Western Pennsylvania accused of breaching the Capitol over former President Donald Trump’s false election fraud claims. Fox pleaded guilty in November to disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, a misdemeanor.

Prosecutors want U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell to put him behind bars for 30 days and give him three years of probation and a $500 fine, saying he “publicly celebrated the violence on that day and only just recently expressed remorse for his actions, on the eve of sentencing.” Fox’s lawyer countered that he’s a changed man, sees now that what he did was wrong and is hoping to avoid prison so he can keep running his small moving business.

In late December 2020 and early January 2021, before the Jan. 6 insurrection, Fox indicated on Facebook that he was going to Washington, D.C., to support Mr. Trump. Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Franks said that
on Dec. 24, he (Fox) posted that the “I hope Trump starts civil war.” He also told a series of lies in later days, Mr. Franks said, claiming that he and other rioters were let in by police and that officers murdered five members of what he described as a “rowdy tour group” describing Jan. 6 as a “walking tour” and saying the only violence had been perpetrated by a “Black officer murdering a white woman.”

Fox initially refused to be interviewed by the FBI and only later agreed to a debriefing. During the interview, Mr. Franks said, he showed no remorse. The government told him he had one more chance to express remorse in a letter to the judge. A year later,
with sentencing at hand, he finally apologized for his actions and asking for leniency.

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2022/03/08/capitol-rioter-mount-pleasant-bragged-probation-feds-jail-sam-fox-january-6-trump-election/stories/202203080110