Featured Stories | News

Florida man receives the longest prison sentence yet for Capitol insurrection

U.S. Judge Tanya Chutkan sentenced a Florida man to the longest sentence for any person convicted for their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

Robert Scott Palmer of Largo, Florida, pleaded guilty to his role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6. He was given a 63-month sentence to be served in federal prison. He received an additional 36 months of supervised release and was ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution.

According to the government, Palmer threw a wooden plank at officers, sprayed the contents of a fire extinguisher at the officers before then throwing the extinguishers. He then searched for more materials to assault police with including throwing a fire extinguisher a second time.

The government said Palmer admitted in interviews that his goal was to subvert a democratic election and that he hoped for military intervention to overturn the election to keep then-President Donald Trump in power.

The judge was critical of Palmer’s actions on 1/6 and said that the U.S. Marshals, Capitol Police, and others who fought to keep the insurrectionists out of the Capitol and away from the elected leaders were “the real patriots that day.”