WASHINGTON — A federal judge sentenced a Marine Corps veteran and former State Department appointee to nearly six years in prison Friday, saying he'd "betrayed" the oath of office he'd taken.
In July, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden found Federico Klein, 44, and another man, Steven Cappuccio, guilty on multiple felony counts for their role in a violent, hours-long assault on officers who were attempting to prevent rioters from entering the Capitol through a tunnel on the west side of the building. Klein was convicted of eight felonies, including six counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding police, but avoided a dangerous weapon enhancement that would have sent him immediately to jail like Cappuccio. Another defendant, Christopher Quaglin, pleaded guilty to all counts against him and is set to be sentenced in January.
Klein was a political appointee of former President Donald Trump at the time working for the State Department. He'd also volunteered with Trump's presidential campaign, and had worked in Nevada following the election to investigate the president's unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
On Friday, McFadden sentenced Klein to 70 months in prison, or nearly six years, and $5,000 in fines and restitution. He said Klein's "shock and egregious" conduct on Jan. 6 warranted a significant prison term.
"I don't remember ever seeing a case where someone assaulted so many officers in such a short period of time," McFadden, himself a former sheriff's deputy, said. The judge also suggested Klein could have been charged under the Hatch Act — a federal law that prohibits executive branch employees from some political activities.
Prosecutors wanted Klein, one of only a small number of federal employees to be charged in connection with the riot, to serve 120 months, or 10 years, in prison. They said in a sentencing memo filed Friday that he volunteered to travel to Las Vegas to investigate claims of voter fraud and was “keenly aware” of the legal options available to challenge election results. The night before Jan. 6, according to prosecutors, Klein met with friends and told them he believed then-Vice President Mike Pence was not going to certify the election.
When Pence did not go along with the plan the next day, Klein joined the mob that was attacking police inside the Lower West Terrace Tunnel of the Capitol. There, he used a stolen police riot shield to wedge in a door and prevent officers from closing it and participated in a “heave, ho” effort to push past police. It was during one of those “heave, ho” efforts that DC Police Officer Daniel Hodges was crushed in a doorframe by another of Klein’s co-defendants, Patrick McCaughey III.
While in the tunnel, prosecutors say Klein committed at least five separate assaults on police also beckoned other rioters in and yelled, “We need fresh people!”
Klein’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, argued in his own motion that, despite his multiple felony convictions, his client was “no different than thousands of other protesters” on Jan. 6. He also argued that, because McFadden did not find Klein guilty of using a dangerous weapon against police, he should not be lumped in with other rioters who did.
“Mr. Klein readily admits that the events of January 6, 2021, are abhorrent. Mr. Klein regrets his role in the events of that day. Mr. Klein will be sentenced because of his individual actions and participation on that day,” Woodward wrote. “However, no one person can be held responsible for the events of that day, and while Mr. Klein was present in an area which saw a long and intense skirmish between Capitol Police and rioters, Mr. Klein should be held responsible for his actions and his alone.”
Woodward argued for a sentence of 40 days in jail and three years of supervised release – a sentence dramatically lower than any of Klein’s co-defendants convicted of similar charges have received. However, prosecutors also sought a sentence significantly above any McFadden has handed down to date in a Jan. 6 case.
In April, McFadden, a former deputy attorney general who was nominated to the federal bench in 2017 by former President Donald Trump, sentenced McCaughey to seven-and-a-half years in prison for assaulting Hodges with a dangerous weapon. He sentenced Robert Morss, a former Army Ranger who was convicted in a stipulated bench trial of multiple accounts of assaulting police with a dangerous weapon, to five-and-a-half years in prison. Geoffrey Sills, a Virginia man who robbed an officer and then beat him with his own baton, received four years in prison.
Klein, who did not make a statement during the hearing, was allowed to self-surrender. McFadden said he would consider a recommendation from Woodward about where Klein should be placed.