A man who carried a Confederate battle flag through the halls of the Capitol during the January 6, 2021, riot, was sentenced to three years in prison on Thursday, The Hill reported.
Kevin Seefried was found guilty last summer on one felony of obstructing an official proceeding and four misdemeanors connected to his participation in the riots.
“I never should’ve entered,” a tearful Seefried said at Thursday’s sentencing.
Federal prosecutors had asked the judge for a 70-month sentence, while Seefried’s attorneys asked for no more than one year and one day.
Judge Trevor McFadden, who sits in D.C.’s federal trial court and was nominated by former President Donald Trump, called Seefried’s conduct “humiliating” and said he had every reason to know he shouldn’t be there.
“Bringing the Confederate flag into one of our nation’s most sacred halls was outrageous,” McFadden said, according to The Hill.
Seefried’s attorneys argued that he did not consider “the logic of those who see the flag as a symbol of American racism.”
McFadden also sentenced Seefried to one year of supervised release and $2,000 in restitution.
Seefried and his son, Hunter Seefried, who was sentenced to two years in jail in October, initially traveled on Jan. 6 to attend Trump’s rally on the Ellipse. They went to the Capitol and ate before seeing the crowd and joining in, according to the report.
Prosecutors say the two men were some of the first rioters to enter the Capitol Building, where they remained for 25 minutes and confronted US Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, who received widespread acclaim for leading rioters away from lawmakers in the Senate Chamber moments later in an episode captured on video.
In the roughly two years since the attack, federal prosecutors have arrested more than 950 defendants, according to the Department of Justice.