Rioter Who Paraded Confederate Flag Through U.S. Capitol On Jan. 6 Sentenced
The person who marched across the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, waving a Accomplice battle flag that he additionally used to threaten a Black police officer was sentenced Thursday to 3 years behind bars.
Kevin Seefried, 53, teared up earlier than U.S. District Choose Trevor McFadden in a Washington, D.C., courtroom. The choose instructed him that bringing the flag into “one in all our nation’s most sacred halls” was “outrageous.”
“I by no means wished to ship a message of hate,” Seefried instructed the choose, in response to The Related Press.
The Delaware man breached the Capitol alongside his son, Hunter Seefried, who was sentenced in October to 2 years in jail. Each had been discovered responsible final June of expenses together with obstruction of an official continuing.
Images of the elder Seefried along with his flag shocked many Individuals within the aftermath of the assault on Congress ― the pro-slavery image had by no means been overtly flown within the Capitol within the nation’s historical past.
Kevin Seefried of Delaware carries a Accomplice flag by means of the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 6, 2021. He has been sentenced to 3 years in jail.
At one level, Seefried had used the flag as a weapon in opposition to U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman, who confronted off in opposition to a mob of Donald Trump supporters by himself and efficiently diverted them away from areas the place lawmakers had been being evacuated.
Goodman testified in court docket that Seefried tried to push him away by jabbing the flagpole towards him.
He was “saying issues like, ‘Fuck you, I’m not leaving,’ ‘The place are the members at?’ ‘The place are they counting the votes?’” Goodman stated, in response to CNN. Supporters of then-President Trump had been incited to storm the Capitol to disrupt the official counting of the 2020 Electoral School votes by each homes of Congress earlier than the inauguration of Joe Biden.
Seefried’s legal professionals acknowledged in court docket paperwork that as a highschool dropout who grew up in an abusive family, Seefried was not conscious of the hateful message the flag despatched.
Kevin Seefried (left) and his son, Hunter Seefried, confront a U.S. Capitol Police officer on Jan. 6, 2021.
“He was taught that the flag was an emblem of an idealized view of southern life and southern heritage,” the attorneys wrote. “Missing an schooling past the ninth grade and missing even common mental capability, Mr. Seefried didn’t admire the advanced and, for a lot of, painful, historical past behind the Accomplice battle flag.”
The FBI didn’t discover any proof that both Seefried or his son had been affiliated with far-right extremist teams, the AP reported.
Seefried’s attorneys famous that, amid the fallout over his participation within the Capitol assault, his spouse had left him.
