Pa. man gets nearly 3 years for attacking cops with a stun gun and assaulting a reporter during the Capitol riot
Alan Byerly, a 55-year-old carpenter from Berks County, was sentenced Friday for acting on Jan. 6, as one prosecutor described it, as if he were in the movie “The Purge.”
Others used flagpoles, bottles, and even their fists to break through security lines at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Alan Byerly used a steel-encased Trump sign as a battering ram.
Others focused their ire solely on police. Byerly assaulted a reporter, too, shoving and dragging the man into a crowd of others who continued the attack.
Others were content to make their way into the Capitol building after breaching the perimeter. Byerly found more victims, jabbing more officers with a stun gun until he was finally wrestled to the ground.
And when FBI agents confronted him about his actions that day — crimes for which he was sentenced to two years and 10 months in federal prison on Friday, making him the 17th Pennsylvanian ordered jailed for his role in the insurrection — the 55-year-old carpenter from Fleetwood, Berks County, balked at the notion that he’d done anything worthy of prosecution.
“This is political f— persecution,” Byerly told agents after his arrest last year, according to court filings in the case. “It’s all politically f— pushed to persecute any Trump supporters.”
Since then, Byerly has adopted a more conciliatory tone. In July, he pleaded guilty to assault charges, accepting a deal that shaved several years off his possible prison sentence.
And as Byerly stood before U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss at his sentencing hearing Friday in Washington, his lawyer described him as a man who is now “remorseful and [who] has accepted full responsibility for his actions.”
“I didn’t go to D.C. to harm anyone,” Byerly told the judge. “I should never have gotten involved, and I’m deeply sorry for my actions.”
Prosecutors have their doubts.
In their own filings this week, they noted Byerly came to Washington prepared for violence, stopping to buy a stun gun on his way there, and later lied to the FBI about what he’d done that day.
“At no time has Byerly ever expressed remorse for his conduct,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Anita Eve said in the run-up to Friday’s hearing.
In fact, when investigators first identified him more than a year after the riot because of the distinctive Kutztown beanie he wore that day, Byerly unequivocally denied being involved in any assaults. He eventually recanted but continued to minimize his conduct, Eve said.
She described Byerly’s actions on Jan. 6 as unhinged, noting that he committed not one, not two, but three assaults.
Within half an hour of arriving at the Capitol building, he joined a crowd in using the massive, upended Trump sign on casters to batter police keeping the mob at bay.
His assault on the reporter, minutes later, came after the man had already been grabbed by the lanyard with his press ID and dragged down the Capitol steps by another rioter.
And after police wrestled away his stun gun, he tried to grab one of their batons.
“Byerly treated Jan. 6 as a … day akin to the movie The Purge,” Eve said in court filings, a day ”when he could do whatever he wanted without judgment or legal consequence.”
In court Friday, Byerly’s attorneys described him as a “kindhearted, loyal, and caring man.”
They noted he never actually entered the Capitol building and argued the stun gun he wielded wasn’t particularly dangerous, presenting an expert report that the $25 weapon he’d bought at a Cabela’s sporting goods store wasn’t capable of inflicting harm — much less deadly harm.
They maintained that Byerly accidentally fired the stun gun on himself shortly after purchasing it and therefore knew it was incapable of causing harm.
Still, Moss, the judge, said Byerly’s use of the device “undoubtedly added to the fear the officers felt that day.” He acknowledged that he believed Byerly was genuinely remorseful.
Byerly has been held in custody since his arrest last year and will receive 15 months’ credit toward the sentence imposed Friday.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.