The Department of Justice says this photo shows Jeffrey Sabol holding a baton against the throat of a downed police officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol Building.Department of Justice
A Colorado geophysicist who tried to flee the country to avoid charges connected to the Capitol riot was sentenced Thursday to more than five years in prison for assaulting a downed police officer.
Jeffrey Sabol, 53, of Kittredge, was indicted in January 2021 as part of what became a nine-defendant case alleging multiple assaults on police at the entrance to the Lower West Terrace Tunnel of the U.S. Capitol. The tunnel was the scene of some of the most prolonged and brutal attacks on officers during the Capitol riot, including the crushing of D.C. Police Officer Daniel Hodges in a doorframe and the electroshock assault on former Officer Michael Fanone, WUSA reports.
Sabol was charged with assaulting another DC Police officer, identified as “B.M.” in court filings, by grabbing him and dragging him down a set of stairs and then repeatedly punching him. In charging documents, investigators said a top-down photo of the assault shows Sabol holding a police baton against the back of the officer’s neck.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras sentenced Sabol to 63 months, or a little more than five years, in prison. He will receive credit for more than three years spent in pretrial detention following his arrest in early 2021 while attempting to flee the country.
Sabol was arrested in New York in January 2021 after flying to Boston from his home in Colorado with the intent to flee to Switzerland because he was “paranoid that he was going to be charged with sedition,” according to prosecutors.
