Daniel “D.J.” Rodriguez at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 (via DOJ court filing).
The Donald Trump supporter who reportedly viewed the former president as a father figure and went to violent lengths to keep him in office — including jamming an electroshock device into the neck of a Washington, D.C., cop during the violent Jan. 6 melee at the U.S. Capitol — will spend more than a decade behind bars.
“Trump won!” Daniel “D.J.” Rodriguez shouted after he was sentenced Wednesday to more than 12 years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6 riot, when mobs of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building as Congress had begun to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win. According to multiple media reports, Rodriguez’s outburst came as he was being led out of the federal courtroom by U.S. Marshals after hugging his lawyers.
Rodriguez, 40, pleaded guilty in February to four felony counts, including conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of justice, and assaulting a law enforcement officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
He had bragged about putting a stun gun to the neck of Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who suffered a heart attack and other injuries after being dragged into the mob.
“Tazzzzed the f— out of the blue,” Rodriguez posted to a pro-Trump Telegram group on Jan. 6 as the riot was underway, prosecutors say. “[O]mg I did so much f—— s— [right now] and got away tell you later,” he also wrote.
The sentence from Judge Amy Berman Jackson, a Barack Obama appointee, hews much closer to the prosecution’s requested term of 14 years than to the less than six years sought by Rodriguez. In a sentencing brief, defense attorneys argued that Rodriguez, who grew up without his dad, saw Trump as “the father he wished he had.”
Fanone, who spoke at Rodriguez’s sentencing hearing, said in a statement that he feels nothing but antipathy for the defendant.
“I don’t give a s— about Daniel Rodriguez,” Fanone’s statement says. “He ceased to exist to me as a person a long time ago. Any compassion or empathy I felt toward those who laid siege to our [C]apitol, whose actions I felt were at least in part influenced by their leader Donald Trump and his lies, has been eroded. Eroded by the attacks directed at me and my family by supporters of Donald Trump and the right-wing media.”
The former police officer called for the DOJ to prosecute Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 attack and said that there should be “no safe harbor” for Trump and “no quarter” given to his enablers.
Rodriguez’s jubilant attitude Wednesday stood in sharp contrast to the tearful confession he made to federal investigators in March 2021, when he admitted to using the electroshock weapon against Fanone.
“Am I a f—— piece of s—? Yes,” he told two agents during the interview, who asked him why he tased Fanone.
“I don’t know,” Rodriguez said through tears, according to an FBI transcript of the interview. “I’m a piece of s—. I’m sorry. I don’t know. He’s a human being with children, and he’s not a bad guy. He sounds like he’s just doing his job and he’s — I’m an a——.”
Rodriguez was decidedly less remorseful at Wednesday’s hearing, according to reports.
“I hope Officer Fanone will be OK one day,” he said, according to Washington CBS affiliate WUSA. “It sounds like he’s still in a great deal of pain.”
In general, however, Rodriguez showed little remorse for his actions on Jan. 6, according to the WUSA report, instead focusing on the sense of community he felt among his fellow Trump supporters at protests and rallies before and after the 2020 presidential election. According to prosecutors, Rodriguez wrote hundreds of messages about war, revolution, traitors, and tyrants in connection with the 2020 election.
“Your messages were all blood, war, weapons, hanging,” Jackson told the defendant, according to WUSA. “You never even anticipated a peaceful gathering.”
Jackson also ordered Rodriguez to serve 36 months of supervised release following his prison sentence, as well as restitution in the amount of $2,000 toward the estimated $2.9 million in damage to the Capitol, and $96,927 in damages to the MPD.
Two men who also participated in the attack on Fanone, Edward Badalian and Albuquerque Cosper Head, have also been convicted of felonies. Head was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison, while Badalian is expected to be sentenced in July.
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