WASHINGTON — Prosecutors want a Marine Corps veteran and former NYPD officer who tackled and choked a DC Police officer during the Capitol riot to serve more than 17 years in prison, arguing the sentence was warranted for “disgracing” the democracy that he once fought to protect and serve.
The 210-month sentence the Justice Department is seeking for Thomas Webster, of New York, would be by far the longest handed down in any Jan. 6 case to date. Prosecutors sought more than 15 years in prison for Texas Three Percenter Guy Reffitt for being at the front of a mob that overwhelmed police, although he was ultimately ordered to serve 87 months behind bars. Another defendant and former police officer, Thomas Robertson, of Virginia, was also sentenced to 87 months in prison earlier this month.
Webster was convicted by a jury in May of six counts, five of them felonies. During trial, prosecutors showed video of Webster “elbowing” his way through the massed crowd on Jan. 6 to where DC and U.S. Capitol Police officers were holding a perimeter behind a line of bike racks. Body cam video showed him immediately screaming at one of those officers, D.C. Police Officer Noah Rathbun, before initiating what prosecutors described as a “rage-filled” assault within seconds of arriving at the police line. Video showed Webster repeatedly swinging a metal pole with a Marine Corps flag attached at Rathbun and another officer before charging through the barricade and tackling Rathbun to the ground, where he attempted to rip off his gas mask and helmet. Rathbun testified that Webster’s attack choked him and left him gasping for air as he felt other rioters kicking him while on the ground.
Webster took the stand in his own defense, calling Rathbun a “rogue cop” and claiming an incidental, open palm contact to his face by Rathbun’s hand felt like a “freight train.” Jurors deliberated for only two hours before finding Webster guilty on all counts. Outside of court, two members of the jury told reporters it was a “very easy and quick” decision and that they didn’t find Webster’s testimony about what he described as Rathbun’s “punch” to be credible.
Prosecutors highlighted Webster’s own testimony in their memo Wednesday, writing that the “countless hours” he said he’d spent as an NYPD officer working protests meant he should have been particularly attuned to how dire the situation was for police trying to defend the U.S. Capitol Building.
“It is particularly disturbing that a former NYPD officer, once responsible for manning bike-rack barricades and protecting dignitaries, would help lead the breach of the barricades outside the U.S. Capitol,” assistant U.S. attorney Hava Mirell wrote in the sentencing memo. “It is also disturbing that a former Marine would use his U.S. Marine Corps flag as a deadly and dangerous weapon during an attack on our democracy.”
Mirell said Webster has, to date, expressed “no remorse or contrition” for his actions on Jan. 6 or for claiming on the witness stand that it was Rathbun, and not him, who was the aggressor.
“Webster’s failure to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct on January 6 suggests the need for further deterrence,” Mirell wrote. “In the minutes and hours following his attack on Officer Rathbun, when he had time to reflect on what he had done, Webster was not apologetic or ashamed. To the contrary, he deliberately inserted himself in the background of another rioter’s live video to call for more ‘patriots’ to come to the Capitol and join the fight against police.”
After the riot, Mirell said, Webster returned to his hotel room and texted a friend that he would “never forget this date.”
Prosecutors estimated Webster will face a recommended sentencing guideline of 210-262 months in prison at his hearing next week, and asked the judge in their memo Wednesday to order Webster to serve 210 months of that.
In his own memo filed late Thursday, Webster's attorney, James Monroe, said pretrial services had recommended a sentence of 120 months in prison which, though substantially lower than the DOJ's ask, would still exceed the longest Jan. 6 sentences so far by nearly three years. Monroe, however, asked for an even more substantial downward departure to a sentence of time served for the 127 days Webster spent in jail before being granted pretrial release and the 400+ days he'd spent on home confinement since.
Although Webster spent the trial attacking Rathbun's character and denying he was the aggressor, Monroe's sentencing memo offered a different version of events. In it, Monroe wrote it was Webster who "angrily confronted Officer Rathbun and his fellow officers, screaming obscenities and questioning their patriotism." Monroe also wrote that Webster "wielded the flagpole as a weapon" — something he denied on the witness stand — and that it was Webster who charged and tackled Rathbun. During his testimony, Webster claimed Rathbun had come toward him and they "just, like, ran into each other."
"The crimes committed by Mr. Webster are unmistakably violent and reprehensible," Monroe wrote in his memo. "As much as the defendant's time with the United States Marine Corps and New York City Police Department speaks to the defendant's high moral character, it also belies the fact that such a person would have known better... Mr. Webster was one of the few people among the thousands of Americans present at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th who should have fully appreciated the enormity of the task assigned to Officer Rathbun and his fellow officers."
Although Monroe wrote Webster was no longer attempting to "mitigate or minimize his violent conduct on January 6th," he blamed the former NYPD officer's presence at the Capitol on "unscrupulous politicians."
"These forces championed by former President Donald Trump exerted an extraordinary amount of influence over those Americans present at the Capitol on January 6th through their relentless disinformation which turned otherwise decent, law abiding individuals such as Mr. Webster against his fellow Americans."
Monroe said Webster no longer believed the 2020 election was illegitimate and was now "deeply ashamed and remorseful for having participated in the January 6th protest."
Webster was scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 1 at 2 p.m. by U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta in D.C. District Court.
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