Dale Huttle, 73, from Indiana, marched on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 with an upside-down American flag on a flagpole and then used that pole to stab security guards at the Capitol. He will spend the next 30 months of his life in jail.
The Justice Department said about the sentence on Tuesday. Huttle pleaded guilty in December to one felony count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain police with a dangerous weapon and causing serious physical harm. Huttle will also be on supervised probation for two years and have to pay a little over $3,600 in restitution. This is on top of his 30-month term.
After three years and hundreds of orders for restitution payments, Law&Crime recently revealed that the damage to the Capitol is still not even close to being fully paid for. The estimated $3 million in damages are mostly owed by U.S. taxpayers.
Police say Huttle went from Crown Point, Indiana, to Washington, D.C., to attend the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” protest. He then quickly joined a crowd marching on the Capitol. His 41-year-old nephew Matthew Huttle, who is also from Indiana, joined him. Matthew Huttle was given a six-month jail sentence in November for breaking into and staying in a restricted building or on restricted grounds. He had already agreed to a plea deal.
Federal prosecutors say Matthew Huttle told his uncle, “We’re going to see if we can get inside” as they got closer to the Capitol building. At first, he wasn’t sure if he should go through with it because he saw so many cops defending the building from the crowd.
Police say Matthew Huttle told his uncle, “We’re going to be stopped here.” “I don’t think we’ll get close.” We need to go up the side… “A lot of cops.”
But that didn’t stop his uncle in the least.
“I believe we should rush to the Capitol building!” Put them all in jail. “There are enough of us to do that,” the 70-year-old man said.
In the statement of offense that went with his plea, Huttle admitted that around 2 p.m., he and his nephew got together near the west front of the Capitol and stood with a group of rioters. On his cell phone video, Matthew Huttle caught the scene and could be heard noticing that there was still tear gas in the air.
People in the crowd yelled, “You guys need to be patriotic!” as the Huttles got closer to the cops. Stay American! Someone is stealing your country!” “You can’t stop a million of us!” We’re taking this house, just so you know, and you swore not to do that. “You are working for the enemy,” and more.
Rioters tried to break through the police line by grabbing bike rack barriers along the western front of the Capitol. A push-and-pull began over the barriers between the rioters and police. Lawyers for the government say Huttle “stood at the front of the pack of rioters waving his flagpole the whole time.”
As soon as a blocker moved out of the way, Dale Huttle charged at the police and hit one officer in the stomach with his flagpole.
The officer lost his balance, slipped, and fell backward down hard concrete and marble stairs, where Huttle hit him with his stick. Because of the fall, the officer slipped a disc in his back. Prosecutors say the officer is still in pain and needs regular treatment.
Source: Law&Crime