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Left: Andrew Taake. Right: Taake is seen holding a whip during a confrontation at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (via FBI court filing).
A sentencing hearing broke down this week over a disagreement about a sentencing enhancement for a self-employed handyman from Texas who admitted to using a metal whip and unloading a can of bear spray on officers during the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
The hearing for Andrew Quentin Taake, 35, was delayed when his lawyer disputed the judge adding an enhancement to his client’s punishment for inflicting bodily injury on an officer based on an officer’s testimony he was injured by bear spray. The new enhancement would bring Taake’s sentencing range to between 87 and 108 months — or seven and nine years. That’s more than the 78 months — or 6.5 years — that prosecutors sought and was not in the plea agreement which listed the guidelines at between 46 and 57 months.
Washington CBS affiliate WUSA reported that Taake’s lawyer, Michael Lawlor, said that in his 27 years as an attorney, he had never heard of a judge applying guidelines that differed from what was spelled out, Washington CBS affiliate WUSA reported.
“I can count on one hand — not even one hand — the number of times a judge has come in and said, ‘I’m going to apply a different guidelines calculation and this is the first time you’re hearing about it,”” Lawlor said, the outlet reported. “This is the only time it has happened.”
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Donald Trump appointee, said the enhancement should apply in this case, according to the outlet.
“Based on the government’s brief and the victim impact statement it’s as clear as day to me that the sentencing enhancement applies here,” Nichols said, WUSA reported.
The news station said prosecutors hadn’t requested the new enhancement because they hadn’t had the officer’s victim impact statement when they made the plea agreement.
Lawlor argued the information didn’t prove his client was the one who sprayed the officer in the face and asked for a continuance of the sentencing, according to the news outlet.
“I am not comfortable winging this,” Nichols said, WUSA reported.
Nichols ordered defense and government briefs next month before a new sentencing hearing on May 23, according to the court docket.
Taake had been on pretrial release for a pending child-solicitation case in Texas when he went to the Capitol ready for violence, armed with bear spray and a metal whip, prosecutors said. He sprayed officers trying to hold the line with “bear-attack repellent spray” four times. He attacked an officer with a metal whip and threw a water bottle at the police line before scaling a wall, authorities said. He entered the Capitol through the Senate Wing Door soon after its initial breach and wandered around the building for 20 minutes, brandishing his metal whip, prosecutors said.
In the days following the riot, a witness who was messaging Taake on the Bumble dating app while he was in Washington, alerted the FBI to Taake’s role in the chaos, Law&Crime reported. According to court documents, this witness “said Taake admitted to being inside the U.S. Capitol for approximately 30 minutes.”
Court documents show that Taake portrayed himself to his would-be paramour as little more than an innocent bystander.
“I was pepper sprayed, tear gassed, had flash bangs thrown at me, and hit with batons for peacefully standing there,” he wrote in a text to the potential match. He then sent a picture of himself with a scarf or gaiter covering the lower half of his face, which he indicated was taken around “30 minutes after being sprayed.”
“Safe to say I was the very first person to be sprayed that day … all while just standing there,” he added.
The witness and Taake never met in person, court filings note.
When he was arrested on Jan. 2021, the FBI recovered three loaded guns from Taake’s residence even though he was barred from having them due to his status as a felon, authorities said.
He pleaded guilty in December 2023 to one count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon.
Prosecutors said in court documents that ever since, “Taake has continually shifted blame for his criminal actions on January 6 to the victim officers, members of Congress, and the media.”
“His enduring narrative is that he and other ‘patriots’ were heroes and that he is a wrongfully detained victim of ‘selective persecution,’” prosecutors said. “He has not exhibited an ounce of remorse for his actions, nor accepted responsibility — going so far as to deny responsibility even after his guilty plea.”
They said that based on reports from his pretrial detention, he has “taken to using violence against other inmates to relieve his frustrations with his self-inflicted predicament.”
