DOJ wants 15 years in prison for butcher who caused USCP sergeant's career-ending injury

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors say a Maine butcher who caused a career-ending injury to a U.S. Capitol Police sergeant on Jan. 6 should spend more than 15 years in prison.

Kyle Fitzsimons, 39, of Lebanon, Maine, was convicted in September on 11 counts, including felony counts of obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder and four counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding police.

Fitzsimons rejected a plea offer and went to trial in August, facing video footage from multiple angles showing his repeated assaults and the testimony of three officers who took the stand to testify about being attacked. One, DC Police Officer Sarah Beaver, was struck in the head by an unstrung bow Fitzsimons through into the police line in the Lower West Terrace Tunnel. Another, DC Police Officer Phuson Nguyen, said Fitzsimons broke the seal on his gas mask and caused noxious pepper spray to be trapped inside. The third officer, U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, testified that it was Fitzsimons who grabbed his shield and ripped him to the ground – causing an injury to his shoulder that required surgery to repair and which, ultimately, has led to his early medical retirement from the force.

Although Fitzsimons’ attorney claimed he was attempting to defend another rioter when he assaulted police inside the tunnel, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, who convicted Fitzsimons on all 11 counts against him in a bench trial, said at the time he had no doubt Fitzsimons’ intention was to hurt law enforcement.

“He took every opportunity he had to continue inflicting violence on officers,” Contreras said.

In a sentencing memo, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Gordon and Douglas Brasher asked Contreras to sentence Fitzsimons to 188 months, or more than 15 years, in prison, as well as three years of supervised release and a $26,892 fine. The prison term, they argued, was appropriate for the violence and “utter lack of remorse” Fitzimons has shown. The fine they sought to capture money he raised through a “J6 Family Relief Fund” prosecutors said portrayed him as a “mere rallygoer who is being unconstitutionally prosecuted.”

“Fitzsimons should not be able to capitalize on the violence and chaos that he unleashed, the injuries he inflicted, or the damage he caused during the Capitol riot in this way,” prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors may also seek additional restitution for the injuries Fitzsimons caused to Gonell.

Fitzsimons did not submit a sentencing memo on the public docket, but did file a document with a list of sentences received by other defendants he argues are relevant case comparisons. They include Geoffrey Sills, a Virginia 3D artists who received 52 months in prison for assaulting police inside the same tunnel as Fitzsimons, Robert Morss, a former Army Ranger who helped lead the crowd in the tunnel and received 66 months, and Josiah Kenyon, a Nevada man who used a table leg with a protruding nail to strike officers and received 72 months in prison. All three men accepted plea deals with the government.

If Contreras granted prosecutors’ sentencing request, Fitzsimons would receive the second-longest prison term to date in a Jan. 6 case – three years less than Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and more than a year longer than Peter Schwartz, a Pennsylvania man convicted on 13 counts, including four counts of assaulting police with a dangerous weapon.

Fitzsimons was scheduled to be sentenced at 2 p.m. on Thursday.