“If I had known that day would turn into what it turned into, I would have stayed home,” Alberts said.ĭefense attorney Roger Roots said Alberts, a tow truck driver, commonly carried a gun with him for self-protection while working.Ī prosecutor, Shalin Nohria, said Alberts fully loaded a magazine with hollow point and high-pressure rounds - and had an extra round in the gun's chamber - because he wanted to be “as lethal as possible” on Jan. “You came to the Capitol that day to start a war and you, in fact, turned that staircase into a war zone,” Sherman said.Īlberts' voice cracked as he turned to apologize to Sherman. In April, a jury in Washington, D.C., convicted Alberts of all nine counts that he faced at trial, including a felony charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding police.ĭuring Wednesday's hearing, Capitol Police Officer Stephen Sherman described how helpless he felt when Alberts rammed into him with the wooden pallet as another rioter tried to pull him down the stairs. Prosecutors had recommended a 10-year prison sentence for Alberts, who said he served in the Virginia National Guard from 2005 to 2011 and was deployed to Iraq for one year in 20. Prosecutors asked for Alberts to be taken into custody immediately after his sentencing, but the judge allowed him to remain free until he reports to prison at a date to be determined. “Alberts, with his body armor, gas mask, military gear, and rage, rallied and instigated the mob,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.Ĭooper also sentenced Alberts to three years of supervised release after his prison term. He was armed with a 9-millimeter pistol - loaded with hollow point and high-pressure rounds - and brought an extra magazine of ammunition.Īlberts was the first rioter to reach the northwest steps outside the Capitol and the first to "go hands on" with a Capitol police officer at that part of the complex, prosecutors said. “You were not simply a bystander,” the judge said.Īlberts, a former Virginia National Guard member who lives in Maryland, spent six hours on Capitol grounds on the day of the riot.
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