WASHINGTON, D.C. – Federal prosecutors want one of the participants in the attack on the U.S. Capitol to spend more than three years in prison, according to new court documents.
FBI agents arrested Jonathan Munafo in Orlando in April 2021 after they claimed he punched a police officer and stole a riot shield during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
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He accepted a plea deal in April, pleading guilty to civil disorder and assaulting officers.
According to court documents filed this week in Washington, D.C. federal court, prosecutors are asking a judge to sentence Munafo to 37 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
They are also asking for $2,000 to be paid in restitution.
“Munafo is a thirty-six-year-old male with no family support and no stable residence who spent most of his time in the year preceding January 6, 2021, driving around the United States without a valid driver’s license and in a borrowed car,” prosecutors wrote. “Munafo focused on the areas where the former President would be speaking and campaigning. He slept in his car or camped out to get front row seats at the events. While doing this, Munafo engaged in increasingly erratic and violent behavior, racking up criminal and traffic offenses for which courts issued arrest warrants when he failed to appear.”
In her court filing, Munafo’s attorney did not dispute his client’s actions on Jan. 6.
She did ask the court for leniency, claiming Munafo suffers from mental illness.
“He’s stable now after 29 months,” defense attorney Rachel Brill wrote. “Under federal supervision, he’ll get mental-health treatment and reentry assistance. Further imprisonment in the (Bureau of Prisons) stands to delay and undermine both treatment and security. Either ‘time served’ or probation is warranted.”
Munafo is already serving a 24-month federal prison sentence for an unrelated case in Michigan, where he was accused of sending threats to the governor.
He will be sentenced in the Capitol riot case on Friday in Washington, D.C.
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