Two siblings found guilty for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the US Capitol became the earliest of the demonstrators to regain their freedom late Monday after President Trump announced Day 1 pardons for hundreds who took part.
Andrew and Matthew Valentin, hailing from Stroudsburg, Pa., were released from the Central Detention Facility in Washington, DC, just before midnight, Trump administration representatives disclosed outside the facility — adding that Elon Musk was “the mastermind” behind their abrupt liberation.
“The first two January 6 defendants have been released. This is a few hours after President Trump signed his historic pardon,” the White House liaison to the Justice Department, Paul Ingrassia, told reporters, calling the pardon a “monumental moment in our history.”
“This injustice is ending in America tonight and this dark chapter in our country’s history is coming to an end,” Ingrassia added.
Trump, 78, said he issued “approximately 1,500 pardons” at the White House during Monday’s inaugural events.
Hours after he was sworn into office, the president authorized a measure commuting 14 prison sentences and granting “a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
The Justice Department brought criminal charges against 1,583 people tied to the riot, which took place following Trump’s claim during the waning days of his first term that the 2020 election was being “stolen” from him. Protesters breached the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Electoral College votes confirming Joe Biden’s victory.
The Valentin brothers had only recently been handed a sentence of two and a half years in prison each on Friday, according to the Pocono Record.
Local reports state that 32-year-old Matthew Valentin admitted guilt in September to two felony charges of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and was facing up to eight years in prison.
His younger sibling, 27-year-old Andrew Valentin, pleaded guilty to one felony charge matching his brother’s and an additional felony for assaulting, resisting or impeding officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon. He was looking at a maximum of 28 years in prison.
Neither individual entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, but both became involved in confrontations with law enforcement.
Matthew “violently grabbed an officer’s neck” and directed “a chemical irritant” at officers, while Andrew flung a chair that struck one, according to a sentencing memo issued by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
The memo also noted that both stole officers’ batons while yelling at the police.
Andrew wrote a letter expressing remorse for his conduct, while Matthew’s attorney stated “he has mentioned more than once how he is still haunted by his acts daily.”
“I am disappointed in myself when I think about how the law enforcement agents must have felt on that day and every day since,” Andrew wrote in his apology letter.
“My intentions were never to hurt anyone and I cannot believe that I behaved in such a manner.”
Trump had vowed to release “our great hostages” well ahead of his inauguration.
“They’ve been treated very unfair. The judges have been absolutely brutal. The prosecutors have been brutal. And nobody’s ever treated people in this country like that,” he said on the first day of his second term.
Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, 42, who had supported Trump himself, died of a stroke one day after the Capitol turmoil. Two additional officers died by suicide within days of the incident.
{Matzav.com}
