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Alan Hostetter (left) pictured outside Supreme Court for the “Virginia Women for Trump/American Phoenix Project Rally” on 1/5/2021, (right) Ashli Babbitt in a September 2020 photo. (Image of Hostetter via video screengrab of Instagram/@americanphoenixproject; image of Babbitt )
A former police chief in La Habra, California, who went on to become a yoga instructor and a convicted felon for his actions on Jan. 6 was sentenced Thursday to more than 11 years in prison, but not before he claimed Ashli Babbitt isn’t actually dead — even as Babbitt’s mom looked on in court.
Alan Hostetter, unlike his Three Percenter “DC Brigade” co-defendants found guilty by a jury in November, was convicted of four charges after a July bench trial before Senior U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee.
Those charges were for conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding (the Jan. 6 congressional certification of electoral votes), obstruction an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and disorderly conduct.
Hostetter, 58, opted to represent himself at trial. In a late November sentencing memo filed by prosecutors, the government began by quoting what the defendant said on Dec. 19, 2020, revealing his clear intent to breach the Capitol and demand lawmakers “fix this mess” — that is, the election outcome.
“Choke that city off, fill it with patriots, and then those people behind the walls of the Senate and the House are gonna be listening to us chanting outside those walls. . . . And they’re gonna realize, we have one choice,” Hostetter said. “We either fix this mess and keep America America, or we become traitors, and those five million people outside the walls are gonna drag us out by our hair and tie us to a fucking lamp post. That’s their option.”
On Jan. 6, Hostetter had a “hatchet and other weapons” with him to participate in “an attack that was clearly calculated to influence and affect the conduct of the United States government and to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.”
Hostetter and co-defendant Russell Taylor, who pleaded guilty to obstruction in April, used Hostetter’s group the American Phoenix Project to “organize protests to the election results and to encourage violence.”
Hostetter, prosecutors said, saw pro-Donald Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Lin Wood as “[b]ig names […] telling people to get angry, engage in civil disobedience, take to the streets.”
In October 2020, before the election was held, Hostetter was a “featured speaker” on behalf of the anti-COVID-19 restrictions American Phoenix Project at an Arizona conference “focused on the QAnon conspiracy theory,” prosecutors said.
While on the one hand Hostetter declared “[n]obody wants violence,” he encouraged the crowd to keep the Civil War “in the back of your mind.”
“We’ve never been as close to it as we are today since the Civil War. And you have to be thinking like that,” he said. “I’m all about peace, until somebody comes after my kids and my grandkids and says, ‘No, they’re gonna live under Communist rule. We’re gonna have Marxist school systems.”
One person who wore QAnon-themed clothes and shared posts about the conspiracy was Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed on Jan. 6 by U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd after she stormed the building with an angry mob and tried jumping through a smashed window of a barricaded door near where lawmakers were hiding.
The shooting of Ashli Babbitt, who repeatedly retweeted Lin Wood in the days and hours before her death, was caught on video.
But that didn’t stop Alan Hostetter from claiming Thursday that the shooting was a “psy-op” and that Ashli Babbitt is still alive.
More references from Alan Hostetter to “crisis actors” on Jan 6
Judge Royce Lamberth is sitting at the bench. Making good eye contact. But saying nothing during Hostetter’s series of conspiracy theories and misinformation
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) December 7, 2023
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NBC News’ Ryan Reilly and CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane both noted that Babbitt’s mother was in the courtroom for the proceeding.
According to Reilly, Babbitt’s mother was angry with Hostetter and said “I assure you she is dead” when leaving court.
“What the f— is it you’re trying to say?” the mother reportedly asked.
“Was she cremated?” Hostetter reportedly replied.
He also said Ashli Babbitt’s death was faked, which pissed off Ashli Babbitt’s mother.
“I assure you she is dead,” Babbitt’s mom told him as he left court. “What the fuck is it your trying to say?”
“Was she cremated?” he asked.
“You need help,” she said. “Arrogant shit.”
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) December 7, 2023
“You need help,” Babbitt’s mother reportedly said back. “Arrogant s—.”
Hostetter will have some time to reflect more on the subject.
Judge Lamberth ultimately sentenced the defendant to 135 months in prison (11.25 years). Before Lamberth handed that punishment down, Hostetter reportedly blamed Jan. 6 on Antifa, “crisis actors,” and government “false flags.”
“The election was stolen,” Hostetter reportedly said. “I still have hope it’ll become known and be remedied.”
After the judge sentenced him to be locked up for more than a decade, Hostetter walked out of court by himself.
Because I was trailing him and overheard that conversation, Hostetter thought it was another setup, and then started walking the other way.
Here he is leaving the courthouse. pic.twitter.com/3haE9GGVUA
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) December 7, 2023
The court docket shows that Hostetter has been allowed to voluntarily surrender to federal prison and, until that surrender, was permitted to travel between California and Texas. He must reportedly surrender on or after Jan. 5, 2024.
