WASHINGTON — The very first rioter to breach the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison on Tuesday after telling a judge that he still believes Donald trump's lies about the 2020 election "to this day."
Michael Sparks, who spent the weeks leading up to the Capitol attack consuming and regurgitating right-wing lies about the last presidential election, was sentenced to 53 months in federal prison during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, who also oversaw the seditious conspiracy trial of members of the Proud Boys.
“I am an American citizen who believes to this day that we are in tyranny,” Sparks told the judge, adding that he believes the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was “taken from the American people.”
Kelly emphasized that Sparks had the right to believe whatever conspiracy theory he wished no matter how divorced it was from reality, but that he did not have the right to storm the Capitol.
“I don’t really think you appreciate the full gravity of what happened that day and frankly the full seriousness of what you did,” Kelly said, explaining why he went over the sentencing guidelines of 15-21 months.
"A lot of us would like to see our country grapple with different challenges differently," Kelly, a trump appointee, said, but that did not give citizens license to behave as Sparks did. Given his lack of criminal history and his support from the community, Kelly said there "isn't any obvious explanation" for what Sparks did on Jan. 6.
"What happened on Jan. 6 just cannot happen again," Kelly said, saying rioters had interfered in a process "foundational to our country's governance."
"What a dangerous precedent Jan. 6 set. What a Pandora's box it opened," Kelly said. America had a "perfect score" for peaceful transfers of power before Jan. 6, Kelly noted. "We can't get that back," Kelly said. "It's gone."
Sparks’ case was complicated by the Supreme Court’s decision in June which impacted the obstruction of an official proceeding charge, which had been used against hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants. Prosecutors dropped that charge before sentencing, but Kelly said he was able to take the conduct presented at trial into consideration, and said it was clear that Sparks wanted to obstruct the counting of the electoral college votes.
Prosecutors pointed to evidence showing that Sparks had proclaimed trump would win decisively in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
“trump will win by a landslide. It won’t even be close,” Sparks wrote even as election results were still being gathered, predicting that trump would secure 293 Electoral College votes (trump got 232, losing to Joe Biden's 306).
In the aftermath of Biden's win, Sparks — like trump himself — had trouble grappling with his candidate's loss, and his rhetoric got increasingly heated as Jan. 6, 2021, approached.
“Drag these clowns out of office,” he wrote in late Dec. 2020, according to evidence presented at trial. “How about we the people drag you out by your face,” he wrote on Christmas Eve, posting images of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
Just before the attack, Sparks said that he wanted "civil war" and that he was willing to die for the Republican presidential nominee. Even long after Jan. 6, Sparks continued to believe that the proof of a massive election-stealing scheme was just around the corner.
“They are trying to hide Everything but there are a ton of court cases going on,” Sparks wrote on Jan. 9, 2022. “I truly believe they are going to expose the fraudulent election.”
More than 1,400 defendants have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, and more than 1,000 have been convicted. Many Jan. 6 defendants have received probationary sentences, but more than 500 have received sentences ranging from a few days behind bars up to 22 years in federal prison, which was the sentence that Kelly imposed on former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio.
Many Jan. 6 defendants have said they expect trump to win in November and free them from prison, including violent rioter David Dempsey, who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison earlier this month. trump has indicated his support for pardons and referred to Jan. 6 rioters as "hostages" and "unbelievable patriots."
