WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge ordered a 50-month sentence on Friday for a man who assaulted police officers and stole one’s badge and radio during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Thomas Sibick, from Buffalo, New York, grabbed the gear from Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone after Fanone was dragged from the police line into the mob of rioters, where he was tased multiple times in the back of the neck by another rioter, Albuquerque Head.
U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson, a Barack Obama appointee, ordered Sibick pay a $5,500 restitution fee to the MPD — on top of the now-standard $2,000 owed by Jan. 6 rioters to the Architect of the Capitol for damages to the building — in addition to his four years and two months in prison.
Fanone spoke before the court, urging Jackson not to show Sibick mercy because he and his fellow officers received none from him that day.
“Sibick, in an act of cowardice, stripped me of my badge, the emblem of my duty and what I had dedicated my life to for 24 years,” Fanone said Friday. “My radio was my lifeline, all I had in those moments to call for help, and it was taken from me to be used as a trophy.”
Sibick was part of a small group of Jan. 6 defendants to be detained temporarily prior to his trial due to a series of false statements he made to FBI investigators, in particular lies about what he did with the badge and radio.
After four interactions with investigators, including an untrue warning that they had security camera footage from the hotel he stayed in before and after Jan. 6, Sibick admitted that he took Fanone’s badge home and buried it in his backyard.
Jackson made special note of the fact that both items were firmly attached to Fanone’s tactical vest and of the imagery the theft evoked to her.
“Fanone reminded me, [the badge] is a symbol,” Jackson said. “And ripping it off of his chest was a symbol as well.”
Before Jackson passed down his sentence, Sibick made an emotional statement in which he apologized to Fanone, turning back to look at him multiple times, and to Jackson for his actions on Jan. 6 and throughout his case.
“I’m sorry about what I did to you that day … if I could go back and change things I would. I wish I was never there that day,” Sibick said.
Jackson struggled to fully accept Sibick’s apology as sincere, considering the false statements he had made previously and a long list of requests he had made during his home confinement, including a request to use a dating app and meet people he matched with.
She also struggled with arguments made by both Sibick and his defense attorney, Stephen Brennwald, that his mental health played a part his actions on Jan. 6 and his struggles during his incarceration.
Brennwald emphasized that his client faced difficulties during the seven months he spent incarcerated after his arrest in March 2021, particularly at the hands of other Jan. 6 defendants.
Brennwald said that the other defendants were “like a cult” who saw Sibick as a rat, a traitor and not a true patriot, which pushed his client to request solitary confinement to get away from the harassment and threats. He said Sibick’s time in prison as well as his later period of home incarceration were detrimental to his client’s mental health.
Jackson, while understanding of the difficulties he had endured, did not find it reason enough to grant the defense’s request that his client serve the rest of his sentence under home confinement.
“I cannot treat this as the biggest calamity of your life, when someone else’s life has been ruined,” Jackson said.
Jackson, like she and her fellow district judges have done in nearly every Jan. 6 case, decided on a sentence much lower than the 71 months the Justice Department requested for Sibick.
While she did not provide a direct reason for the downward variance, she credited Sibick for the time he had already served.
In the 30 months since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the Justice Department has charged over 1,000 people for their actions during the riot; approximately 561 have been sentenced. The investigation remains ongoing, with about 323 people who committed violent acts still unidentified.
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