Bob’s Burgers actor sentenced to one year in prison for Capitol riots

Comedian Jay Johnston was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison for his role in the January 6 Capitol riot.

In July, he pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstructing law enforcement officers who were trying to stop a mob of Trump supporters from storming the Capitol.

Johnston, 56, has had acting credits in Hollywood since the mid-1990s, and in December 2021, he was fired from his role on the animated series Bob’s Burgers after he was identified as a possible rioter.

Prosecutors had sought a longer prison sentence for Johnston, whose lawyers argued that the United States had done so “persistently overstated” actor’s role in attack.

According to ABC News, Johnston spoke briefly in court in Washington on Monday before his sentencing and called his role in the attack “reprehensible.”

Judge Carl Nichols cited Johnston’s successful acting career as the reason for his participation as “all the more inexplicable and disturbing.”

Based on body camera and surveillance footage, authorities said Johnston “participated with other rioters in a group assault” on police officers guarding the entrance to the Capitol and “helped carry away a stolen police shield ahead of the riot.”

One policeman was injured at this western entrance.

According to U.S. prosecutors, Johnston showed no remorse for his actions, while demonstrating “clear knowledge of and participation in the violence committed by rioters that day.”

As evidence, prosecutors cited a photo showing Johnston dressed as the so-called ‘QAnon Shaman’ at a Halloween party two years after the incident in 2021.

Prosecutors also said that in the days after the riot, Johnston sent messages to friends and family claiming that the severity of the attacks had been “exaggerated by the media.”

Johnston’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward, wrote in a sentencing memo that his client was unfairly targeted “because he is an established Hollywood actor and the government is using his status to gain public attention.”

Johnston was “essentially blacklisted by Hollywood” and had “been working as a handyman for the past two years, which is clearly a departure from his actual knowledge and source of income in film and television,” Woodward argued.

Johnston had supporting roles on the hit comedy Anchorman and on television on Mr Show, Arrested Development and Bob’s Burgers, where he voiced fan-favorite character, Italian restaurateur Jimmy Pesto.

Nearly 1,500 people were charged in connection with the riots that took place on January 6, 2021. According to data from the US Department of Justice, almost 900 people pleaded guilty to various crimes, and over 180 were convicted at trial.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he will pardon some or all of the rioters – whom he called “hostages” and “political prisoners” – if he wins the November 5 election.

He did not provide details about who he would fire and what criteria he would use to select them.