John Earle Sullivan had been convicted in late 2023 of seven Jan. 6 charges. He filmed the shooting of Ms. Babbitt outside the Speaker’s Lobby at the Capitol.
John Earle Sullivan, the onetime racial-justice activist and provocateur who filmed the deadly shooting of Ashli Babbitt at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced to six years in federal prison by a judge in Washington D.C.
Mr. Sullivan, 29, of Tooele, Utah, did not receive the 87 months recommended by federal prosecutors for his role on Jan. 6. But his 72-month sentence was well beyond the 30 months his defense attorney recommended.
The sentence meted out on April 26 by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth brought to a close the more than three-year prosecution of Mr. Sullivan, one of the most recognizable Jan. 6 figures. He was arrested on Jan. 14, 2021—one of the first Jan. 6 suspects taken into custody by the FBI.
Judge Lamberth sentenced Mr. Sullivan to serve two years of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to pay $2,520 in restitution and special assessments.
Mr. Sullivan came to the Jan. 6 events in Washington trailed by filmmaker Jade Sacker, who has since published a documentary about the liberal Mr. Sullivan and his conservative activist brother James.
Although media continue to report that Mr. Sullivan dressed as a Trump supporter on Jan. 6, that wasn’t true. On Jan. 5, he posted a widely shared photo of himself to social media donned in a Trump ball cap. He did not wear Trump gear on Jan. 6.
Mr. Sullivan was found guilty by a District of Columbia jury in November 2023 of obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder and aiding and abetting, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon, unlawful possession of a dangerous weapon on Capitol grounds, disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.
