Two Jan. 6 rioters named by USA TODAY are now in prison
Gregory Yetman, an Army National Guardsman from New Jersey who fired pepper spray at police officers on Jan. 6, 2021 and then led the FBI on a manhunt before turning himself in, was sentenced to 30 months in prison Tuesday.
Yetman, who was also fined $2,000, was named in a USA TODAY investigation last March as one of more than 100 Capitol rioters who had been identified to the FBI but had not been charged. Curtis Logan Tate, who was named in the same story, was arrested last August and was sentenced to 63 months in prison earlier this month.
Yetman was charged with assaulting police officers at the Capitol in November, but when federal agents attempted to arrest him, Yetman fled into nearby woods, sparking the manhunt. He surrendered to authorities two days later.
“Yetman got swept up in the madness of the crowd that descended on the Capitol that day,” his attorney wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “Like too many others, he engaged in outrageous conduct there, using a canister of pepper spray to shower a noxious aerosol over nearby law enforcement officers.”
Yetman appears on video firing the pepper spray at a crowd of officers. He was identified to USA TODAY by members of the Sedition Hunters, a collective of amateur online sleuths that has identified hundreds of Capitol rioters using facial recognition and other research. He was known among the researchers as #HeavyGreenSprayer after the canister he can be seen firing.
On Facebook, Yetman “blamed Antifa and the defending police officers for causing the violence and referred to the officers as ‘modern brown shirts,’” prosecutors wrote.
The government had sought a 45-month sentence that “reflects the gravity of Yetman’s conduct on January 6 and his flight from law enforcement officials.”
Other identified Capitol rioters still at large
As USA TODAY reported in November, Yetman had been identified to the FBI by a New Jersey National Guard official shortly after Jan. 6, yet he remained free for years until his capture. Dozens of other Jan. 6 rioters still remain at large, despite having long ago been identified to federal authorities.
They include Oliver Krvaric, a former Trump administration official and rising young Republican star from San Diego and Denise Aguilar, a candidate for the California Assembly.
Search riot arrests: See who has been charged across the U.S.
Tate, the other defendant named in USA TODAY’s original investigation, said in an interview last year: “I would never hurt an officer. I come from a military background, I'm very respectful of our military and police.” He was charged with, and found guilty of, assaulting law enforcement officers. In addition to the five years he faces in prison, Tate was ordered to pay $3,176 in restitution.
A successful career in the National Guard
Yetman served in the Army National Guard for more than a decade.
According to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, 209 of the 1,404 or 15 percent of the people arrested in connection to the Jan. 6 riot have military backgrounds. START also found last year that being affiliated with the U.S. military is the “single strongest” predictor of violent extremism in America.
Yetman posted photographs on Facebook of himself at a National Guard training a few weeks after the Capitol insurrection. Those photographs, and others posted to social media, helped online sleuths match Yetman to the man seen firing the chemical spray at officers outside the Capitol.
According to Yetman’s attorney, he served in Afghanistan and was deployed to Cuba and on other assignments abroad with federal agencies. He was awarded medals for outstanding service and worked on humanitarian missions overseas, the lawyer wrote.
After federal agents attempted to arrest Yetman and he fled into the woods, they executed search warrants at his home and vehicle. “They found multiple firearms and significant quantities of ammunition in his residence, a loaded firearm in his vehicle, and additional firearms and weapons in a storage unit,” prosecutors wrote.
“While Yetman lacks any criminal history prior to the instant offense, the seriousness of his conduct on January 6, and in particular his willingness — as a then-active military police officer — to use a dangerous weapon against fellow police officers that even he recognized were just ‘there to do their job’ defending the U.S. Capitol from the riotous mob weigh heavily in favor of incarceration,” prosecutors wrote.
More than 1,400 people have been arrested and more than 1,000 people have been sentenced in relation to the Capitol Riot. Former president Donald Trump has pledged to pardon the rioters if he wins office in November.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Two Capitol rioters sentenced to prison after USA TODAY exposé
