Septic Installer Is Sentenced to 7 Years for Urging Jan. 6 Mob With Megaphone

A man in Washington State has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, where prosecutors said he used a megaphone to urge other rioters to barge through a police line.

The man, Taylor James Johnatakis, 40, of Kingston, Wash., was sentenced Wednesday after being convicted last fall of three felony charges — obstruction of an official proceeding, interfering with law enforcement during a civil disorder and assaulting law enforcement — and four misdemeanor charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

Before Jan. 6, Mr. Johnatakis posted numerous messages on social media expressing his desire to interfere with the election certification process at the Capitol. “That’s why I am going to D.C., to CHANGE the course of HISTORY #stopthesteal,” he wrote in one post, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

Wearing a red MAGA hat and backpack carrying a megaphone, Mr. Johnatakis led a group of people up to a police line on the Capitol’s Southwest stairs on Jan. 6, urging rioters to “push them out of here,” according to a court filing.

Officer body camera footage showed Mr. Johnatakis lifting a metal barricade and pushing it into officers as he led a countdown over his megaphone, “One, two, three, go!”

Other footage showed Mr. Johnatakis grabbing an officer’s arm.

Marc D’Avignon, an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department, testified at Mr. Johnatakis’s trial that the confrontation on the Southwest stairs had been “frightening.”