'A rabbit hole of darkness and extremism' Ex-Navy Reservist sentenced to 4 years in Capitol riot c [View all]

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Source: WUSA 9

'A rabbit hole of darkness and extremism' | Ex-Navy Reservist sentenced to 4 years in Capitol riot case

Updated: 11:39 AM EDT May 8, 2023

WASHINGTON — A federal judge sentenced a former Navy Reservist to four years in prison Monday for obstructing the joint session of Congress — adding to a three-year sentence he's already begun for illegally possessing unregistered silencers.

Hatchet Speed, a former Navy Reserves petty officer first class previously stationed at the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Virginia, was convicted in a March bench trial of one felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding and four misdemeanor charges. He was convicted separately in January in a Virginia case for possessing three unregistered silencers – which he told an undercover FBI employee he thought would be useful for holding “mock trials” for his enemies. Speed's term of service with the Navy Reserves expired in November.

A federal judge in Virginia sentenced Speed to three years in prison last month on the silencer charges. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ordered Speed to spend another four years in prison on top of that for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, along with a $10,000 fine and $2,000 in restitution. McFadden, who served as a deputy assistant attorney general before being nominated to the federal bench in 2017 by former President Donald Trump, said Speed's anti-Semitic motivations for trying to stop the certification of the election were especially troubling to him.

"It seems to me you've gone down a rabbit hole of darkness and extremism over the past several years," McFadden said.

Read more: https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/national/capitol-riots/doj-asks-for-3-years-in-prison-for-navy-reservist-who-praised-hitler-studied-unabomber-hatchet-speed-antisemite-nazy-chantilly/65-872d01b7-7010-4028-8f7c-4c415c61ec7d