WASHINGTON — A federal judge sentenced Elliot Resnick, the onetime editor of a Jewish newspaper that claimed he was at the Capitol riot to cover it, to four months imprisonment on a felony charge for joining the attackers and obstructing a police officer.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras on Thursday also sentenced Resnick, who pleaded guilty to the charge in January, to four months of home detention and 24 months of supervised release. Resnick was also ordered to pay $10,539 in fines and restitution.
The prosecution and the defense had at the time of his guilty pleas agreed to recommend a prison sentence of eight to 14 months and a fine between $4,000 and $40,000, in part because Resnick has no criminal record.
Resnick will begin serving his sentence in Otisville, a medium-security federal prison in upstate New York that is famous for its large population of Orthodox Jews, after the High Holidays. He had appeared subdued in court appearances, but sounded a defiant note on X afterwards.
“For now, I have just two comments: 1) The January 6 protesters are heroes. 2) The left knows no rules, it respects no boundaries,” he said, promising more comment later. “It will do whatever it takes to win and advance its agenda. If the right doesn’t wake up and start matching the left’s ferocity, zealotry, and deviousness, this country will go down the drain,” he said.
The Department of Justice in a statement after the sentencing said Resnick had waved rioters into the Capitol, pulled rioters into the Capitol past police officers seeking to stop them, and held the arm of an officer who was attempting to spray irritant at the rioters. The riot took place on Jan. 6, 2021, and was spurred by then-President Donald Trump’s false claims that he had won the election.
After video emerged of his presence at the Capitol, The Jewish Press, the Brooklyn-based tabloid where Resnick worked from 2006 to 2021, the last three years as editor, said that he was covering the riot. Just months after that claim the newspaper let him go without explanation.
