March 21 (UPI) — A Colorado man who helped drag a police officer into the violent pro-Trump mob during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection was sentenced Thursday to 63 months in prison for three felonies.
Jeffrey Sabol, 53, was accused of beating a police officer who was attempting to help injured rioters.
His charges include an attack on a D.C. police officer. He said in an interview with police following his arrest that he had answered a call to battle because he “was a patriot warrior.”
“His actions and the actions of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.
Sabol, of Kittredge, Colo., also was sentenced to 36 months of supervised release and ordered to pay $32,165.65.
The Justice Department, citing court documents and stipulated facts in the case, said Sabol attended the Trump “Stop The Steal” rally before joining the front of a line of rioters confronting police at the Capitol.
“In a coordinated effort, Sabol and another rioter pushed a third rioter — who, himself, was holding a riot shield — from behind, propelling him forward and up a set of steps, so that the rioter with the shield ran into the line of police,” the DOJ said in a statement. “As the officers attempted to repel the rioters pushing against the police line, Sabol kept pushing forward and slammed into a riot shield held by a Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officer.”
Sabol was in the pro-Trump mob as an MPD officer was pulled into the violent mob, according to the DOJ.
He was convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, federal robbery, and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon and aiding and abetting.
After the attack on the Capitol Sabol deleted texts and other communications from his cell phone. He also booked a flight to Zurich, Switzerland in an attempt to flee the United States.
After he was unable to board the aircraft Sabol rented a car and drove to Westchester, New York, where he was arrested by the FBI Jan. 11, 2021.
He told officers he was wanted by the FBI after “fighting tyranny in the D.C. Capitol.”
He also destroyed his laptop computers in a microwave oven and dropped his cell phone in a body of water.
The DOJ said Sabol came to the Capitol with a helmet, a buck knife, a trauma kit and zip ties.
During the melee Sabol pulled an officer’s baton from his hands as he was supine on the ground with such force that the officer’s torso was lifted from the ground, according to the DOJ.
Sabol is a geophysicist.
The DOJ said Thursday since Jan. 1, 2021 1,358 people have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the Capitol insurrection. More than 486 people have been charged with felonies for assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
