A Marine who stormed the U.S. Capitol and apparently flashed a Nazi salute in entrance of the constructing was sentenced on Friday to almost 5 years in jail.
Tyler Bradley Dykes, of South Carolina, was an active-duty Marine when he grabbed a police riot defend from the arms of two cops and used it to push his approach by police strains in the course of the assault by the mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.
Dykes, who pleaded responsible in April to assault fees, beforehand was convicted of a criminal offense stemming from the 2017 white nationalist Unite the Proper rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dykes was transferred to federal custody in 2023 after he served a six-month sentence in a state jail.
U.S. District Choose Beryl Howell sentenced Dykes, who’s 26, to 4 years and 9 months of imprisonment, the Justice Division mentioned.
Federal prosecutors had really useful a jail sentence of 5 years and three months for Dykes.
“He immediately contributed to a few of the most excessive violence on the Capitol’s east entrance,” prosecutors wrote.
Dykes’ attorneys requested a two-year jail sentence. They mentioned Dykes is aware of his actions on Jan. 6 had been “unlawful, indefensible and insupportable.”
“Tyler hates his involvement within the Capitol riot,” his attorneys wrote. “He takes full duty for his actions. Tyler apologizes for these actions.”
Dykes, then 22, traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the Republican Trump’s “Cease the Steal” rally with two associates from his hometown of Bluffton, South Carolina. After parting methods along with his associates, Dykes ripped snow fencing out of the bottom and pulled apart bicycle rack barricades as he approached the Capitol.
Later, Dykes joined different rioters in breaking by a line of cops who had been defending stairs resulting in the Capitol’s East Rotunda Doorways.
“After reaching the highest of the steps, Dykes celebrated his accomplishment, performing what seems to be the Sieg Heil salute,” prosecutors wrote.
After stealing the riot defend from the 2 officers, Dykes entered the Capitol and held it in a single hand whereas he raised his different hand in celebration. He additionally used the defend to assault cops contained in the constructing, forcing them to retreat down a hallway, prosecutors mentioned.
Dykes gave the defend to an officer after he left the Capitol.
Dykes denied that he carried out a Nazi salute on Jan. 6, however prosecutors say his open-handed gesture was captured on video.
In August 2017, images captured Dykes becoming a member of tiki torch-toting white supremacists on a march by the College of Virginia’s campus on the eve of the Unite the Proper rally. A photograph exhibits him extending his proper arm in a Nazi salute and carrying a lit torch in his left hand.
In March 2023, Dykes was arrested on fees associated to the march. He pleaded responsible to a felony cost of burning an object with intent to intimidate.
Dykes briefly attended Cornell College within the fall of 2017 earlier than he joined the Marine Corps. In Might 2023, he was discharged from the army below “apart from honorable” situations.
“Slightly than honor his oath to guard and defend the Structure, Dykes’s felony exercise on January 6 exhibits he was as an alternative selecting to violate it,” prosecutors wrote.
Greater than 1,400 individuals have been charged with federal crimes associated to the Capitol riot. Greater than 900 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving phrases of imprisonment starting from a number of days to 22 years.