A Jan. 6 rioter who attacked Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died the next day, with chemical spray to his face was sentenced to prison on Friday. Federal Judge Thomas Hogan gave Julian Khater an 80-month term and imposed a $10,000 fine, the Washington Post reports. The judge said he'd have ordered a longer sentence if Khater hadn't already spent a year in the District of Columbia jail. "There are officers who lost their lives, there's officers who committed suicide after this, there's officers who can’t go back to work," Hogan told him. "Your actions ... are inexcusable."
The DC medical examiner's office attributed Sicknick's death to natural causes, per CBS News, saying he suffered strokes as well as "acute brainstem and cerebellar infarcts due to acute basilar artery thrombosis." Had the report found otherwise, the judge told Khater, he might well have faced a murder charge. The medical examiner's report did say that "all that transpired on that day played a role in his condition." Khater, 32, of New Jersey, had pleaded guilty to assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon. The assault was captured on video.
Khater described the Jan. 6 attack as "extremely unfortunate," adding, "I wish I could take it all back." His lawyer said he was remorseful, but Sandra Garza, Sicknick's longtime partner, said she hasn't seen so, which she said "shows a callousness and maliciousness that disgusts me." Garza; Sicknick's mother, Gladys; and Khater's lawyers blamed former President Donald Trump in court for encouraging the violence over the 2020 presidential election results. Garza said Khater had been brainwashed. Sicknick was 42. (More Capitol riot stories.)
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