2023-05-26 19:07:49
MADRID, 26 May. (EUROPA PRESS) –
United States Army veteran and member of Oath Keepers, Jessica Watkins, has been sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for her participation in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, a day after the head of this far-right militia, Stewart Rhodes, was punished with 18 years in prison, the longest sentence so far for these events.
“His participation that day was more aggressive, more determined than perhaps that of others,” said Judge Amit Mehta, who stressed at the reading of the sentence that not only did Watkins show no remorse, but he also celebrated what happened and that he was unaware of “the gravity of that day and of his role”.
Although Watkins has gone out of her way to portray herself as an “idiot” who just “ran through the halls of the Capitol,” the indictment has exposed how she led the Oath Keepers Ohio cell all the way to Washington. Unlike other of her cronies, however, she has been cleared of the most serious charge of seditious conspiracy.
The aforementioned Rhodes and Kelly Megs were accused of that crime, who was sentenced to twelve years in prison on Thursday. The judge has noted that while Watkins’ role was neither of these two, his role in those events was “more than that of a private.”
During his turn to speak, Watkins has assumed his guilt for what happened and has assured that he fell victim to the conspiracy theories that these groups have repeated to justify what happened on January 6 in Washington. “Now I understand that my presence in the Capitol probably inspired those people. They saw us there and that probably encouraged them,” she said.
“How many people entered because of us? We are responsible for that,” admitted Watkins, who has also mentioned her status as a transsexual woman and how she had to struggle with her identity at a time when the Army applied the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, the expression with which the official view on non-normative sexualities in the United States Armed Forces was known.
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