WASHINGTON — A former Montgomery County Police officer was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison for throwing a smoke bomb at a line of officers during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Justin Lee, 27, of Rockville, was convicted in August of two felony counts of civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding police, as well as three misdemeanors. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, who presided over Lee’s bench trial, acquitted him of two additional misdemeanor charges.
Lee, who wore a distinctive Maryland flag gaiter on Jan. 6, was arrested last October after federal investigators identified him as part of the mob that attempted to force its way past police defending the Lower West Terrace Tunnel of the U.S. Capitol. In a sentencing memo filed earlier this month, prosecutors said Lee should serve 68 months, or more than five-and-a-half years, in prison for throwing a smoke bomb toward officers that created a billowing smoke cloud.
“But throwing a smoke bomb was not enough for Lee,” prosecutors wrote. “He proceeded to throw three other objects at officers. And when he was finished throwing objects, he light checked police, attempting to obscure their vision and expose them to assaults from his fellow rioters.”
Prosecutors also said he lied about attempting to “illuminate” the tunnel with a flashlight to help officers instead of to disorient them.
“Lying under oath in this context is plainly corrosive to the criminal justice system and its intent to seek facts and truth,” prosecutors wrote.
Lee’s attorney, Terrell N. Roberts III, asked McFadden to grant a probationary sentence. He said Lee should be credited for distinguishing himself during his brief career in law enforcement – saying he’d put his life on the line to stop a stabbing suspect.
Lee was working as a supply chain analyst for a pharmaceutical company at the time o the riot. Approximately six months afterward, he applied to and was hired by the Montgomery County Police Department. In a statement following his arrest, the department said Lee’s involvement in the riot was not discovered during a background check because he had not yet been identified by the FBI in connection with Jan. 6.
In July 2023, Lee shot and killed a man accused of stabbing multiple people in Montgomery County after he charged at Lee. The suspect was later identified as 19-year-old Franklin Castro Ordonez, of Gaithersburg. While on administrative leave in connection with that shooting, the department was informed he was the subject of an FBI investigation in connection with Jan. 6.
According to a statement from the department last October, Lee was then suspended without pay and the department began steps to terminate his employment. The department also initiated a review of its background investigation process.
On Friday, McFadden sentenced Lee to 18 months in prison, to be followed by a year of supervised release. Lee will also have to pay a $7,500 fine. McFadden said there were significant mitigating and aggravating factors in the case, including Lee’s “heroic” acts in July 2023 but also his repeated perjury during his trial.
McFadden also said he didn’t think Lee should be counted among the Jan. 6 defendants who assaulted police attempting to injure them. Instead, he described his actions that day as “cowardly.”
“You stood back where you could not be injured yourself and lobbed things at officers,” McFadden said.
Lee will be allowed to self-surrender at a later date determined by the probation office. His attorney did not make a request for what facility he should be placed in.
In the 46 months since the attack on the U.S. Capitol, more than 1,500 defendants have now been charged. Nearly 1,200 have now pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial.