A Santa Ana man who sprayed pepper spray at retreating police officers in the midst of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was sentenced Friday to four and a half years in federal prison.
Months after Jeffrey Scott Brown, 56, joined co-defendants from Pennsylvania and Virginia in becoming the first of the Jan. 6-related defendants to be convicted of assaulting officers with pepper spray, Brown during a hearing in a Washington D.C. courtroom received what is so far the harshest sentence among the Capitol riot defendants with Southern California ties.
A federal jury in December found Brown guilty of assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement officers using a dangerous weapon and interfering with a law enforcement officer during a civil disorder, among other related charges. According to prosecutors, Brown was one of three rioters who were spraying the officers, including an officer whose gas mask had been ripped off by another rioter.
Brown gained attention a month before the Jan. 6 Insurrection by staging a loud, one-man protest within a Tustin Costco by standing on a table covered with clothes and yelling about California’s pandemic-era restrictions. Video of the protest was later posted on social media.
In the leadup to Jan. 6, prosecutors say, Brown stated during an appearance on “Info Wars” that he was planning to travel to Washington D.C., and in social media posts urged others to make the trip as well, telling them “get to DC if you can … doing nothing is no longer an option” and extorting them to “Fight the corruption to the end!” and “Fight for Trump!”
On the day of the riot, Brown attended Trump’s rally before joining thousands of Trump supporters in walking to the Capitol building, where many members of the crowd forced their way into the restricted building, leading lawmakers to escape to safety and delaying the counting of electoral votes and the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.
According to prosecutors,…
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