The first participant in the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6 of 2021 to breach the Capitol building will spend more than four years behind bars, federal prosecutors announced this week.
Michael Sparks, a 47-year-old from Kentucky, was found guilty by a federal jury back in March of civil disorder, obstructing an official proceeding and multiple misdemeanor charges. They were all in relation to him being on the Capitol building premises that fateful day.
This week, Sparks was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly to spend 53 months in prison. He also must pay a fine of $2,000.
Prosecutors added that once his prison term is over, Sparks must be on supervised release for three more years.
As part of the evidence presented in court, video footage showed Sparks entering the building on January 6 at 2:13 p.m. He used a smashed window that was close to a door that leads to the Senate Wing of the building.
Sparks was part of the initial group that confronted Eugene Goodman, an officer with the Capitol Police who held back the mob from reaching some Congress members as they had intended.
The group chased Goodman up one flight of stairs as many yelled and screamed at him, demanding to know in what room of the building Congress members were working to certify the Electoral College results, according to prosecutors.
Once they reached the top of the stairs, Goodman was joined by other officers who faced off with the mob, with many of the intruders yelling “This is our America!”
Scott Wendelsdorf, who was Sparks’ lawyer in the case, argued during his sentencing hearing that too much focus was placed on Sparks being the first person to enter the Capitol building. What ultimately mattered, the attorney argued, was “how long he was there and what he did while inside.”
Wendelsdorf requested in a sentencing memo that his client receive one year of house arrest and three years of supervised release. In that memo, the lawyer tried to distinguish between the actions his client took to those of some of the more violent actors of the riot.
According to Wendelsdorf, his client never threatened or assaulted a police officer, and only spent 20 minutes inside the Capitol building before leaving.
During the March trial, Wendelsdorf argued:
“Michael Sparks may have started the game, according to the government, but he was out of the game on the sidelines before the first quarter was over.”
Ultimately, prosecutors won out in sentencing, as they asked for 57 months behind bars and three years of supervised release. Sparks got four months less than that and the same number of years on supervised release.
In their sentencing memo, prosecutors argued that Sparks forcing entry into the building immediately set off “the forced interruption of the 2020 Electoral College vote count and threatening the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election.”
