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Philip Sean Grillo (U.S. Attorney’s Office).
A Jan. 6 rioter from New York and one-time candidate for the House seat that George Santos previously held is going to prison.
Philip Sean Grillo, 49, was sentenced on Friday to a year in prison, online court records show. He was found guilty on Dec. 5, 2023, of obstruction of an official proceeding, trespassing and picketing in a Capitol building. Grillo was cleared of an associated obstruction charge after a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling limited the government’s use of a federal obstruction law.
In court, as Grillo removed his belt at the order of the U.S. Marshals taking him into custody, the defendant spouted off, saying, “Trump’s gonna pardon me,” reported NBC News’ Ryan J. Reilly.
In a lengthy court filing for the sentencing, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote about just how close the country came to losing our democracy and blasted the many participants in the insurrection who claimed they were political prisoners.
“On January 6, 2021, an angry mob of rioters invaded and occupied the United States Capitol, intending to interrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election results and thwart the peaceful transfer of power that is the centerpiece of our Constitution and the cornerstone of our republican legacy,” the judge wrote.
The judge described the mob bypassing obstacles, ignoring signs and barricades, engaging in pitched combat with officers, striking them with fists, poles, crutches, stolen batons and riot shields, and stampeding through and over them.
Lamberth shamed the rioters, including Grillo, for trying to minimize their actions afterward. He wrote about the toll the cases took on the country, noting that there were more than 100 trials — almost all of which ended in guilty verdicts.
“They have claimed that the Capitol Riots were a peaceful protest or, at worst, a mere trespass, implying or saying outright that the rioters are ‘political prisoner[s]’ being punished for protected First Amendment activity,” the judge said. “Let me be clear: trial by jury is among the most sacrosanct rights guaranteed by our Constitution. But that does not mean that every case should, practically speaking, go to trial, especially if the evidence of guilt is overwhelmingly strong, as in most of the Capitol Riot trials. It is gravely disappointing that so many jurors had to be wrenched away from their daily lives to hear from rioters who would rather spout off mostly bogus defenses than take accountability for their actions.”
Grillo entered the Capitol building through a broken window near the Senate Wing door at 2:20 p.m. carrying a megaphone, court documents said.
While inside, he was interviewed by an individual on video.
“Look at me and tell me what you’re here for?” the individual asked Grillo.
“I’m here to stop the steal. It’s our f—ing house!” Grillo responded before going further into the Capitol.
Later, he was among a mob that pushed past police and opened the exterior doors, allowing rioters to flood in.
“We f — did it! We got to the Capitol building. We f — did it! We f — did it, baby! We f — did it, you understand? We stormed the Capitol. We shut it down! We did it! We shut the mother..!” Grillo said in a selfie video commemorating his crime.
Grillo entered and exited the Capitol three more times. Video shows him pushing up against police officers.
At one point in a video he can be heard asking, “Who’s smoking grass?” and, “Can I get a hit it of that s—?”
In another video, he can be seen high-fiving other rioters after smoking marijuana in the Capitol.
FBI agents arrested Grillo on Feb. 23, 2021, in New York.
At his trial, he testified he had “no idea” Congress met inside the Capitol building but he also said he had been running for election to the U.S. House to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District, the seat formerly occupied by Santos.
