‘This wasn’t Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’: Judge sentences pair of Capitol rioters to 30 days behind bars
By Holmes Lybrand
Two friends who entered the US Capitol together on January 6, one of whom boasted about breaking in and smoking a joint, were sentenced to 30 days in jail each for unlawfully parading in the building.
“This wasn’t Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” Judge Tanya Chutkan said before handing down the sentence Wednesday. “They came to Washington knowing full well the events of January 6,” adding that “their actions were an assault on the American people.”
While federal judges have taken different approaches to sentencing non-violent rioters that have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, Chutkan has sent all eight of the misdemeanor defendants she has sentenced so far to jail for between 14 to 45 days.
Nicholas Perretta and Mitchell Vukich were in the Capitol for 25 minutes, according to prosecutors. Vukich bragged over text message that he “was in the first 15 people in the capitol” and “(g)ot pepper sprayed and shot with rubber bullets lol,” according to court documents. The pair also rifled through some congressional papers they found on the ground and Vukich took some of them and put them inside his jacket before throwing them in a trashcan later, he told investigators.
“What you did on January 6,” Chutkan said during the hearing, “it was no ‘let’s go check out what’s happening,'” contrary to what their attorney’s argued.
“This was a violent attempted overthrow of the government … and it almost succeeded,” Chutkan added. The judge also noted that Vukich wore goggles during the attack, which suggested that he expected confrontation with the police.
Over 725 people have been arrested in relation to the Capitol breach, according to the FBI, with over 70 sentenced thus far and over 30 receiving jail time.
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CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this article.
