A defense attorney had a pretty heated exchange with the judge presiding over the sentencing of a man who was found guilty of participating in the deadly U.S. Capitol insurrection.
Anthony Vo, 31, will spend nine months in prison for his participation in the riots on Jan. 6, 2021. He’ll also have to spend a year under supervised release and pay a $1,000 fine. He was convicted of four misdemeanor counts last September.
In a bio on one of his social media accounts, Vo called himself a “J6 wrongful convict.” After he was found guilty, he wrote that the trial included “zero jury of (his) peers,” and added that it was “100% a kangaroo court.”
During his sentencing hearing, Vo’s defense attorney Carmen Hernandez argued with Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presided over the proceeding, on several matters.
CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane tweeted about the “tense moments” during the hearing.
Hernandez not only challenged a pre-sentencing report containing Vo’s social media comments the FBI relied on as evidence to charge him but also kept trying to get the “sentencing delayed.”
Hernandez also claimed Vo didn’t violate the “spirit” of any conditions of his release when he attended a nightly protest outside a D.C. jail in support of Jan. 6 rioters who had been detained there. She called the gathering a “prayer vigil.”
“Are you serious?” Chutkan responded. She rebuked Hernandez’s claim, saying that Vo wasn’t at a “prayer session,” but that he was “singing in support for those in pretrial detention for violent crimes.”
The Associated Press reported that Chutkan also rolled her eyes and shook her head when she learned from a prosecutor that the vigil’s organizers…
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