A military veteran from Georgia who attacked police officers at the Capitol as part of a pro-Trump mob in a bid to overturn the 2020 election results was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison Monday.
Kevin Creek, a 47-year-old former Marine, was sentenced by Judge Dabney L. Friedrich to 27 months in prison for assaulting officers on January 6.
In June, Creek was arrested and pleaded guilty in December, when he admitted to hitting a D.C. police officer in the hand, pushing a Capitol Police officer and kicking that same officer.
At his sentencing, Creek apologized to the officers and his family.
Creek said that they took full responsibility. I went to D.C. with the intention of going to the rally with some friends. It was very impulsive. It was very bad judgement and I did what I did. Creek said that I have to be punished for this. I'm sorry. Friedrich believed Creek's apology was genuine and heartfelt. She said he still committed a serious felony offense by participating in the unprecedented attack on the Capitol.
In a court filing last week, the prosecutors noted that Creek brought a first aid kit, mace, a boot knife and binoculars to D.C. on January 6, and Friedrich said Monday that Creek decided to go toe-to-toe with the officers at the Capitol.
She said he came to D.C. prepared for violence. He made a deliberate decision to join this large, out-of-control crowd at the Capitol. Friedrich said that Creek was determined to get to the frontline even though his friends stayed behind.
The D.C. cop who was assaulted by Creek wrote in a victim impact statement that he spent 30 minutes trying to control the mob before he was assaulted by Creek, and that police would have stood a better chance of defending the Capitol had Creek and other rioters not helped break the line.
Friedrich said Creek, who was wearing a camouflage Marines Corps hat on Jan. 6, took actions that were completely incompatible with the values he held as a former Marine officer of the United States. According to his attorneys, Creek served on active duty from 1995 -- 1999 and was honorably discharged in August 1999 with the rank of corporal.
Nearly 800 defendants have been charged in connection with the U.S. Capitol attack, and more than 250 defendants have pleaded guilty. The FBI has the names of hundreds of Capitol rioters who haven't been arrested yet, according to a report by NBC News. The Justice Department is seeking millions of dollars in additional resources to prosecute hundreds of Capitol cases.
Creek was sentenced the same day a jury returned a guilty verdict in the case against Thomas Webster, a former New York City police officer who attacked a D.C. cop at the Capitol on January 6. Webster was the fourth defendant to face a jury, and the fourth to be found guilty by a jury.