Far-right web personality ‘Baked Alaska’ gets 60 days in jail for role in Capitol riot

WASHINGTON — A far-right web character who streamed dwell video whereas he stormed the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Tuesday to 2 months of imprisonment for becoming a member of the mob’s assault on the constructing.

Anthime Gionet, often known as “Baked Alaska” to his social media followers, declined to deal with the courtroom earlier than U.S. District Choose Trevor McFadden sentenced him to 60 days behind bars adopted by two years of probation. Gionet had confronted a most of six months of imprisonment.

Gionet incriminated himself and different rioters with the video that he streamed to a dwell viewers of roughly 16,000 followers. The 27-minute video confirmed him encouraging different rioters to remain within the Capitol.

“You probably did every little thing you may to publicize your misconduct,” the choose informed Gionet. “You have been there encouraging and collaborating absolutely in what was occurring.”

Inside an workplace for Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, Gionet filmed himself selecting up a phone and pretending to report “a fraudulent election,” parroting former President Donald Trump’s baseless declare that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

“We have to get our boy, Donald J. Trump, into workplace,” Gionet added.

Gionet joined others in chanting, “Patriots are in management!” and “Whose home? Our home!” Earlier than leaving, he profanely referred to as a Capitol police officer an “oathbreaker.”

Gionet, 35, pleaded responsible in July to a misdemeanor depend of parading, demonstrating or picketing inside a Capitol constructing.

Prosecutors advisable sentencing Gionet to 75 days of incarceration, three years’ probation and 60 hours of neighborhood service.

[He went from a childhood in Anchorage to alt-right fame. Now, the social media personality known as Baked Alaska been arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol.]

Gionet labored at BuzzFeed earlier than he used social media movies to change into an influential determine in far-right political circles. He was scheduled to talk on the white nationalist “Unite the Proper” rally in 2017 earlier than it erupted in violence on the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia.

U.S. District Choose Emmet Sullivan initially was scheduled to condemn Gionet. Sullivan not too long ago withdrew from Gionet’s case and a number of other others for causes that aren’t laid out in courtroom filings, though he took “senior standing” and retired from full-time obligation almost two years in the past.

Gionet celebrated on-line when his case was reassigned to McFadden, a Trump nominee. On a dwell stream, Gionet praised McFadden as “a really superior choose who’s a pro-Trump choose and one of many judges that permit one of many guys off harmless in his trial.”

McFadden acquitted a New Mexico man, Matthew Martin, of riot-related expenses in April 2022 after listening to trial testimony with no jury. Martin is the one Jan. 6 defendant who has been acquitted of all expenses after a trial.

Greater than 900 folks have been charged with federal crimes associated to Jan. 6. Practically 500 of them have pleaded responsible, principally to misdemeanor offenses, and over 350 of them have been sentenced.

Federal authorities have used Gionet’s video to prosecute different rioters, together with three males from New York Metropolis. Antonio Ferrigno, Francis Connor and Anton Lunyk pleaded responsible final yr and have been sentenced to house confinement. Gionet’s livestream confirmed them in Merkley’s workplace.

Protection lawyer Zachary Thornley argued in a courtroom submitting that Gionet “by no means crossed the road from being a protestor to a rioter.” Thornley described his shopper as “kind of a guerrilla journalist.”

“He was there to doc. That’s what he does,” the lawyer informed the choose.

Mainstream web platforms, together with Twitter, suspended Gionet’s accounts earlier than Jan. 6. On the Capitol, he was livestreaming video utilizing a fringe service referred to as DLive. He informed authorities that viewers paid him $2,000 for his livestreams on Jan.5 and Jan. 6.

Below Elon Musk’s possession, Twitter has reinstated accounts belonging to Gionet and different far-right figures.

Gionet, who grew up in Anchorage, was arrested in Houston lower than two weeks after the riot and jailed for 5 days. He moved from Arizona to Florida after his launch.

McFadden additionally ordered Gionet to pay a $2,000 superb and $500 in restitution. The choose stated the Jan. 6 riot was the “end result of a reasonably crime spree” by Gionet.

Gionet was sentenced to 30 days in jail for misdemeanor convictions stemming from a December 2020 encounter during which authorities say he shot pepper spray at an worker at a bar in Scottsdale, Arizona. Gionet additionally was convicted of a prison harm cost and fined $300 for damaging a Hanukkah show in December 2020 exterior the Arizona Capitol.

McFadden famous that Gionet recorded his crimes to drum up social media followers and cash.

“That could be a very disturbing vocation, sir,” the choose informed him.

“With out him going to jail, he received’t cease what he’s going,” Assistant U.S. Legal professional Anthony Franks stated.

Gionet initially balked at pleading responsible to the Jan. 6 cost throughout an earlier listening to. Sullivan refused to just accept a responsible plea by Gionet in Might after he professed his innocence at first of what was scheduled to be a plea settlement listening to.

Earlier than Gionet pleaded responsible in July, Thornley informed Sullivan {that a} protester was exterior Gionet’s Florida house and recording the digital listening to over the phone, a violation of courtroom guidelines.

“Protesting what?” the choose requested.

“I assume him as an individual,” the protection lawyer replied.