Richard Markey (U.S. Attorney’s Office).
A Connecticut man who climbed onto the backs and shoulders of rioters and repeatedly swung a pole at cops guarding a tunnel at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riots is going to prison.
Richard Markey, 38, was sentenced on Friday to 30 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta, a Barack Obama appointee, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release. Markey pleaded guilty in August to a felony charge of assaulting officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
Markey made his way that day to the Lower West Terrace Tunnel, the site of some of the most violent attacks against law enforcement.
That afternoon, he climbed on rioters to make his way toward the police line defending the Tunnel, where he began assaulting officers. Markey assaulted police with a baton and later his fists. In one instance, Markey forcibly struck and pulled on a police shield held by two officers. Markey then balanced himself on the mob of rioters, grabbed the police shield again, and kicked the shield several times.
When an officer tried to get him away by using a pole, Markey pulled the pole from the officer, pointed it at the officer, and screamed, “Oathbreaker! Oathbreaker! You’re not doing your f—ing job. Listen! I fought for this f—ing country.”
Markey then used the pole to hit a police shield. He eventually broke the pole from the strikes and then discarded it – continuing his assault on the cops, yelling at them, striking and pushing the shield with his hands.
He was arrested in July 2023.
In their sentencing memo asking for 54 months of incarceration, prosecutors wrote that the HVAC technician who was discharged from the U.S. Coast Guard in 2009 due to “misconduct” arising from his “involvement” with drugs was particularly violent on Jan. 6.
Prosecutors said Markey’s and a codefendant’s felonious conduct that day was part of a massive riot that nearly succeeded in preventing the certification vote from being carried out, “frustrating the peaceful transition of Presidential power” and “throwing the United States into a Constitutional crisis.”
“Even among other rioters attacking police there, the defendants’ conduct was shocking: both literally climbed over other rioters in order to assault the police officers guarding the entrance to the U.S. Capitol building,” the memo said.
Prosecutors called Markey’s actions more egregious than the other man’s.
“He initially sought to attack the officers with a baton, and only stopped when an officer was able to physically disarm him and seize the baton,” prosecutors wrote. “Markey remained undeterred, and repeatedly assaulted officers with any means available: pulling on their shields, kicking violently at them with his feet, and finally using a pole to repeatedly strike at them until he had shattered it against their shield. Even then, he continued to scream at and threaten the officers, accusing them of breaking their oaths.”
In his sentencing memo asking for 20 months imprisonment, Markey’s attorney, Jerry Ray Smith, said there is no evidence any officer was hurt because of Markey’s actions. The lawyer included letters from family and friends attesting to his good character as a devoted family man who is “extremely generous, kind, and helpful.”
“Though Mr. Markey’s conduct was inexcusable, the fact that he directed his strikes with the stick at the riot shield and did not hit any officers directly with it militates in favor of giving him a lesser sentence than would be appropriate for a defendant who uses a dangerous weapon to make direct contact with an officer—or to even try to make direct contact with an officer,” Smith wrote. “He has been a hard-working and contributing member of society all his life. He is a model family man and community member. His conduct in this case must be viewed as anomalous.”
