A former U.S. Marine who served as a low-level State Department aide in the Trump administration was sentenced Friday to nearly six years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Former Assistant, Federico G. Prosecutors said Klein, a Falls Church, Va., civil servant, used stolen riot gear to repeatedly attack officers during several violent confrontations in a tunnel under the Capitol.
He was arrested in March 2021 and indicted later that year.
After a non-jury trial in July, Mr. Klein was convicted of eight felonies, including six counts of assaulting, resisting or obstructing officers; obstruction of official proceedings; and civil disorder, as well as several other misdemeanors, prosecutors said.
He did not testify at his trial, and U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Trevor N. McFadden refused to speak before the court sentenced him to 70 months in prison and 24 months of supervised release. The Associated Press reported.
“Your actions on January 6 were shocking and disgusting,” Judge McFadden told Mr. Klein, 45, told The AP.
Prosecutors asked for a sentence of 10 years in prison and three years of supervised release.
They did not immediately comment after the sentencing, but the State Department said Mr. Klein’s position, they argued, made his actions on January 6 particularly shocking.
“As an employee of the federal government, Klein earned the trust of the American people,” they wrote in court documents. “On January 6 he violated that trust, attacking the very country he was paid to work for.”
Mr. Klein’s attorney, Stanley E. Woodward Jr. asked for 40 days in jail, credit for time served and three years of probation.
Mr. Woodward declined to comment after the sentencing. He argued that Mr. Klein’s conviction should be based on his actions and not his status as a State Department employee.
In court documents, Mr. Woodward wrote: “Mr. Klein readily admits that the events of January 6, 2021 were abhorrent. Mr Klein regrets his role in the events of the day.
Mr. who goes by Freddy. Klein grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., attended George Mason University and served about nine years in the Navy. Donald J. Before signing on to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, she campaigned for mainstream Republicans, including Mitt Romney, in the 2012 presidential campaign.
In 2017, he was appointed special assistant in the State Department’s Office of Brazilian and Southern Cone Affairs, a relatively obscure position with little influence.
People who have met him at work say Mr. Trump opposes abortion rights and building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. He also openly expressed his support for Trump’s plans.
After the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Klein took a leave of absence from the State Department and moved to Las Vegas, where he “investigated allegations of voter fraud,” prosecutors said.
Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington Mr. When an acquaintance asked him if he was going to Trump’s “Stop the Steel” rally, Mr. Klein responded in a series of messages: “Hell yeah I’m going. I am nominated. I better be there. This is my job,” the lawyers said.
Mr. Klein, wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, attended the rally and then marched to the Capitol, where he led a “relentless siege” of police for more than 90 minutes, prosecutors wrote.
When he stormed the U.S. Capitol, they wrote, he “may have been motivated by personal gain — namely, continued employment as a political appointee.”
Ignoring police orders to return to the Upper West Plaza, prosecutors said Mr. Klein “pushed hard” against the police officers, saying, “You can’t stop this!”
When an officer tried to push him back using a baton, Mr. Klein “pressed back against him, driving his left shoulder,” prosecutors wrote.
“We need some more, let’s go!” According to the lawyers, Mr. Klein told the rioters.
Mr. Klein then entered a tunnel with the first wave of rioters, inviting others to join him, prosecutors said.
As officers inside the tunnel tried to close a set of metal doors, Mr. Prosecutors said Klein grabbed a stolen riot shield and, with the help of another rioter, successfully strapped it between the doors.
Prosecutors wrote that he and other rioters opened the doors and attacked police.
At one point, a rioter hands Mr. Klein a stolen riot shield, which Mr. Klein uses to “forcefully push” against the officers, as the rioters around him chant “Haw! Ho!”
Mr. Klein “pushed so hard,” pressing his face and body against the riot shields, that an officer trying to stop the mob said, “I’m exhausted!”
“Despite the considerable and concerted efforts of Klein and other rioters, the police line on the tunnel was not defeated,” the lawyers wrote.
