By Richard Sullins | richard@rantnc.com
David Gietzen of Sanford was sentenced to six years in prison this week for his participation in the riot at the U.S. Capitol Complex in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. Gietzen, 31, will face an additional three years of supervised release upon the completion of his incarceration.
U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols handed down the sentence after a hearing Tuesday afternoon at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse in Washington in the same courtroom where Gietzen was convicted last summer on seven felonies and one misdemeanor charge for assaulting law enforcement and other conduct that attempted to disrupt an official proceeding of Congress, which had been convened to count and certify the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.
Offered the chance by Judge Nichols to express remorse or regret for his actions, Gietzen refused, saying, “I have to make it explicitly known that I believe I did the right thing.” Before passing Gietzen’s sentence, Nichols said the Sanford man made it clear during the sentencing hearing, just as he had during his trial in August, that he still believes that the election was stolen from Donald Trump, despite evidence to the contrary.
“Mr. Gietzen essentially was unapologetic today about his conduct,” Nichols said as he gave Gietzen a prison term that will keep him behind bars through the term of the next president of the United States, whomever that may turn out to be.
The six-year term includes a “two-level enhancement” for obstruction of justice for flouting an order by Judge Nichols last October 19 to self-surrender in his Washington, D.C., courtroom the following day. Instead, Gietzen deliberately refused the order and became a fugitive, apparently spending most – if not all – of the next 54 days in the home of his mother before being taken into custody by a United States Marshal on December 12.
Documents filed on April 4 by both U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves and Gietzen’s court-appointed public defender Louis C. Allen III paint a portrait of a young man who overcame early hardship and found success, but also one whose life entered a downward spiral after becoming radicalized in his budding political beliefs.
His father enlisted in the Army when David was one year old, and by the time he was 7, his parents had divorced. His mother and nine siblings lived in a 1,300-square-foot home until it was repossessed in 2003, moving then to a mobile home just outside Fayetteville. The court records indicate the family struggled financially for the next several years.
Gietzen dropped out of high school but over a period of several years, his mother enrolled herself, David, and several of his brothers and sisters at Central Carolina Community College. He earned his GED and his associate in applied science and enrolled at N.C. State in 2014.
After six semesters, he had earned two bachelor’s degrees in computer and electrical engineering. He was then hired by Extron, an electronics manufacturing company in Raleigh that specializes in audiovisual environments. At the time he quit a few years later, he was making $80,000 a year and frequently gave portions of his salary to members of his family to help them with expenses and bills.
David Gietzen seemed to be living the dream. But that dream began to morph into a nightmare when he started listening to conspiracy theories that the presidential election of 2020 had been stolen from Trump. Although he hadn’t voted in either the 2016 or the 2020 elections, Gietzen was swayed by false claims of voter fraud he began seeing through social media.
He was so moved by what he was seeing, hearing, and reading that he quit his well-paying job and began attending several “Stop the Steal” rallies across the country during the fall and winter of 2020 and prior to the one on January 6 in Washington. Papers filed by his public defender said David began digesting “a flood of election information…three or four hours a day.”
Three law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol that day were called to testify in Gietzen’s trial. One officer, U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Justin Cohen, testified that Gietzen pushed a bike rack against him so hard that his shins and arms were bruised for days. After being pushed to the ground, Cohen looked up to see Gietzen grabbing the face mask of a fellow officer. A few feet away, Metropolitan Police Department Officer Chad Curtice was also trying to hold the line when he, too, encountered Gietzen, who shouted repeatedly, “you’re all a f—–g disgrace!”
Federal prosecutors sought to focus Nichols’ attention on Gietzen’s actions during the insurrection and upon the bragging he did to his friends and family after the event was over. One text message to a friend said, “I’ve never been prouder to be an American than today’s protest.” In another, he called January 6 “a beautiful day” and spoke with excitement about what he felt would be the next step, the start of an armed civil war on the day of President Biden’s inauguration, January 20:
“Unfortunately, it seems civil war is all but assured now. Word on the street is that the next rally is on the (January 20), and people are bringing their guns this time. This rally is with or without [T]rump. We aren’t his employees, and if he chooses to concede to election fraud, that is treason. There is no giving up permitted when it comes to the future of the world.”
January 6 now a date for reflection
Gietzen is the only known participant in the January 6 uprising to return to Washington two weeks later to attend the inauguration of Joe Biden as President. He was reached by an FBI agent by cell phone on January 19 as he and his brother were making the return trip. But Gietzen lied to the agent, saying he didn’t make it to the Capitol building on January 6 because of the large crowds.
A number of photographs made public at the time of his arrest in May of 2022 showed Gietzen on the West Terrace of the Capitol Complex, as well as in the access tunnel just outside the West Entrance where some of the day’s bloodiest fighting took place. He also told the agent on January 19 that he and his brother were just going to watch the inauguration, although text messages recovered later from his phone led the FBI to conclude that “their plan was to force their way into the Capitol building to force Congress to hold another election.”
Another text message sent by Gietzen read, “Btw they are trying to give credit to storming congress on the news to Antifa….B——T, I was there in a hallway helping to push the line of guards back. Today was 100 (percent) what happens when you piss of(f) normal people, and the next protest is going even further.”
Prosecutors reminded Nichols how Gietzen had deliberately disobeyed his October 19 court order to self-surrender before a sentence was imposed, saying that it was an act of obstruction of justice. That action, along with Gietzen’s failure to show any remorse or regret for his crimes and several assault charges aimed at police officers lodged against him, led Graves to say that Gietzen showed “a pattern of flouting rules and laws and doing what he wants, regardless of the consequences, is how Gietzen operates.”
Public Defender Allen had asked for a prison term of no more than four years for his client. Graves had recommended 10 years on behalf of the government. Nichols ultimately settled on six years, an amount that is roughly equivalent to others who committed similar crimes in the spree that ran out of control for just over five hours on January 6.
Since Gietzen was convicted on federal charges, his prison term will be spent in one of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Prisons facilities. The closest of those to Sanford is in Butner, N.C., but it will be up to the BOP to decide where Gietzen will serve out his term. No assignment had been made by press time.
More than three years since the events that took place at the Capitol complex on the afternoon of January 6, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice says 1,385 persons have been charged as a result of their actions that day. About 500 of those persons, including Gietzen, were charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement officers.
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