Posted on by Randy Slovacek

Former Fireman Gets 4+ Years In Prison For Assaulting Cop During Jan. 6 Riot

A former fireman was sentenced to more than four years in prison on Tuesday for throwing a fire extinguisher at police officers during the violent January 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol building.
Robert Sanford (photo: Dept. of Justice)

A former fireman was sentenced to more than four years in prison on Tuesday for throwing a fire extinguisher at police officers during the violent January 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol building.

According to his attorney, the 57-year-old man had sought out “cult deprogramming” following the January 6 riots to figure out why he’d come to believe Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.

More from NBC News:

Robert Sanford, wearing prison orange, told Senior Judge Paul L. Friedman that he was embarrassed, ashamed and disgusted by his behavior on Jan. 6.

Sanford, who worked as a firefighter in Chester, Pennsylvania, was arrested in mid-Jan. 2021, and has already spent roughly eight months in custody, which will be shaved off his 52-month sentence. He will also serve three years of supervised release.

“Mob mentality is real, and I got caught up in it,” Sanford said, apologizing to the officers he assaulted and to first responders who saw his conduct that day, saying he’d been proud of the work he’d done as a firefighter.

Sanford, his attorney said, had worked with an individual who specializes in “cult deprogramming” and was “confronted with facts about the ‘stolen election’ conspiracy theory among others and how psychological manipulation is used to indoctrinate the followers of a conspiracy.”

Read the full article here.

One of the officer’s Sanford assaulted, former U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, gave a victim impact statement in court on Tuesday. He told the court if “the former guy” — Trump — were to call upon Sanford to go to the Capitol again, Gonell said, he had no doubt that Sanford would be there.

Related: Former Marine Pleads Guilty To Assaulting Police During Jan 6 Attack