WASHINGTON — A federal judge sentenced a member of the Kansas City Proud Boys who carried a wooden ax handle into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to four-and-a-half years in prison Friday.
William “Billy” Chrestman, 49, of Olathe, Kansas, pleaded guilty last October to one count each of obstruction of an official proceeding and threatening a federal officer. Prosecutors had sought 63 months, or more than five years, behind bars for the U.S. Army veteran and second-degree member of the Proud Boys. In their sentencing memo, prosecutors described how Chrestman led fellow Proud Boys and others into the Capitol.
“After a group of rioters breached through the police barricade, Chrestman, brandishing a two-foot-long axe handle, quickly moved to the front of the rioters who were pursuing the retreating officers,” prosecutors wrote. “Once police officers were able to briefly stop the rioters, Chrestman continued to encourage other rioters forward and then urged them to stop the arrest of another rioter. Later, while standing in front of another police line, Chrestman threatened officers with violence and rallied rioters to take back ‘your house.’”
Once inside the building, Chrestman helped stop a security barrier from closing and prevented police from arresting another rioter.
Chrestman was one of six people connected to the Kansas City chapter of the Proud Boys charged in early 2021 with participating in the Capitol riot. Two entered into cooperation agreements with the Justice Department relatively early on in the case: Louis Enrique Colon, of Missouri, who pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding; and Ryan Ashlock, of Kansas, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in restricted grounds. Ashlock was sentenced in late 2022 to 70 days in prison. Colon still awaits sentencing.
Another defendant, Christopher Kuehne, a Marine Corps veteran also from Olathe, pleaded guilty in September to obstructing police during a civil disorder and was scheduled to be sentenced next month. The remaining two, siblings Felicia and Cory Konold, of Arizona, pleaded guilty in November to one felony count each of obstructing police during a civil disorder. They’re scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
Chrestman has been held without bond since his arrest nearly three years ago in February 2021. His attorney, Michael J. Cronkright, sought a time-served sentence that would have avoided additional prison time.
“The reality is nothing makes this OK,” Cronkright said. “And Mr. Chrestman is here to take responsibility.”
Cronkright said Chrestman, who has no prior criminal record, has spent three years reflecting on his “brief” involvement with the Proud Boys and how he, an Army veteran, wound up at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“As he’s been confronted with the evidence he’s had to reconcile the person he sees in the mirror and the person he sees in the images from that day,” Cronkright said.
Chrestman also spoke during his sentencing. He told U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who also presided over the trials of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and other leaders of the group, that he was lost in the moment on Jan. 6 an “felt intoxicated.”
“I now see my actions in a much truer light and I’m ashamed of myself,” Chrestman said.
On Thursday, Kelly sentenced a member of Tarrio’s Florida chapter of the Proud Boys, Gilbert Fonticoba, to four years in prison on similar counts. He sentenced Chrestman on Friday to 55 months in prison, or roughly four-and-a-half years – saying Chrestman was fortunate there was no evidence he ever used the ax handle he carried to strike police. Kelly also acknowledged the letters Chrestman and his family wrote to him and his statement in court, and granted Chrestman the unusual privilege of hugging two of his daughters who were in the courtroom to watch the sentencing.
“You showed remorse to me here today,” Kelly said.
Chrestman requested a recommendation for placement in a Bureau of Prisons facility near his family’s home in Oklahoma. He will receive credit for the approximately three years he’s already served in detention since his arrest.
Members of the Proud Boys charged in connection with the Capitol riot have received some of the longest sentences to date in connection with Jan. 6. In September, Kelly sentenced Tarrio, the group’s former national chairman, to 22 years in prison following his conviction on seditious conspiracy and multiple other felony charges. Proud Boys organizer Joe Biggs, who like Chrestman served in the U.S. Army before working for the conspiracy website InfoWars, was sentenced to 17 years in prison, and Ethan Nordean, a Proud Boys leader from Washington, was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Earlier this month, another federal judge in D.C. sentenced Florida Proud Boy Christopher Worrell to a decade behind bars for assaulting police at the Capitol with pepper gel.