WASHINGTON — An ex-soldier who was previously court-martialed for shooting a handcuffed Iraqi civilian was sentenced to over four years in federal prison Monday for assaulting officers during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Edward Richmond Jr. assaulted officers with a baton inside the lower west tunnel leading into the Capitol, where some of the worst violence on Jan. 6, 2021, took place, yelling, "We’ll break you motherf---er!" according to video evidence cited by prosecutors.
Richmond was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty this year to a felony count of assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer with a deadly weapon.
The FBI arrested Richmond in January after online sleuths identified him as the man — whom they nicknamed “Buff Lightyear” — featured as No. 182 on the FBI's Capitol Violence website.
Back in 2004, Richmond was convicted of manslaughter for "shooting a hand-cuffed Iraqi cow herder in the head" and was sentenced to three years of military confinement, after which he was dishonorably discharged from the military, prosecutors said in his Jan. 6 case. Several news accounts at the time confirmed those details. Because of that and other factors, Richmond had been one of a limited number of Jan. 6 defendants who were ordered detained before trial.
Prosecutors said Richmond had "not been deterred by his three-year court-martial" from participating in the Capitol attack and had "also not complied with a crucial restriction of his release" because he kept a loaded AR-15 rifle in his home.
Richmond's defense lawyers wrote in a sentencing memo that he "realizes the seriousness of his offense" and that he came to Washington to act as security for a Jan. 6 rally attendee. "Between the vents of January 6, 2021 and the day of his arrest, Mr. Richmond led a productive life working as a solar panel technician and raising his son Zade by himself," they wrote. "He deserves a downward variant sentence."
The prosecution and the defense agreed that Richmond's sentencing guidelines were 51 to 63 months in federal prison. Prosecutors sought the highest sentence under the guidelines, 63 months, while the defense team sought a below-guidelines sentence. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ultimately gave him 51 months, at the low end of the guidelines.
Another Jan. 6 rioter, Christopher Maurer, was sentenced to 50 months in prison Monday after he pleaded guilty this year to assaulting, resisting or impeding officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon. Mauer, who had also been held in pretrial detention, yelled “F--- YOU A--HOLES!” at officers and swung a long metal pipe at officers.
More than 1,500 people have been arrested in connection with the Capitol attack, and federal prosecutors have secured convictions against more than 1,100 defendants so far. More than 600 of those defendants have been sentenced to periods of incarceration that have ranged from a few days in prison to 22 years in federal prison for Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy.
President-elect Donald Trump has described Jan. 6 defendants as "warriors," "unbelievable patriots," political prisoners and “hostages" and said he would "absolutely" pardon some, if not all, of the Jan. 6 defendants. The Trump-Vance transition team told NBC News last week that Trump's pardons would be made on a "case-by-case" basis after he takes back the White House on Jan. 20.
CORRECTION (Nov. 20, 2024, 12:25 p.m. ET): The headline in an earlier version of this article misstated Richmond Jr.’s rank. He was a soldier, not an officer, when he was discharged from the Army.
