Hale-Cusanelli of Colts Neck sentenced to 4 years in prison in Jan. 6 Capitol riot case

WASHINGTON −A former U.S. Army reservist and Navy contractor from Colts Neck who once held a secret level security clearance was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court to four years in prison for inciting fellow rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol rampage that led to the deaths of at least seven people.

With a year and eight months of time already served, Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, 32, could spend less than two additional years behind bars if he receives credit for good behavior.

Retired New York police officer Thomas Webster of Goshen, New York, has received the longest sentence of any of the Jan. 6 rioters. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for assaulting a police officer. At 48 months, Hale-Cusanelli's sentence is among some of the longest sentences imposed to date in the ongoing Jan. 6 prosecutions.

Hale-Cusanelli was at the front of the mob that attacked police and smashed windows and doors of the Capitol during the Jan. 6 siege, prosecutor's said.

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"Hale-Cusanelli and thousands of others, whom he urged to 'advance' on the Capitol, succeeded incorruptly obstructing a constitutional, congressional proceeding," Kathryn E. Fifield, a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a sentencing memorandum filed last week.

The ultimate goal was to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

Prosecutors said that Hale-Cusanelli was among the first rioters to enter the Capitol shortly after the breach took place at 2:12 p.m. at the Senate Wing Door. He harassed Capitol police officers and remained in the building for about 40 minutes, they said.

Afterward, he told his roommate that being in the Capitol was exhilarating, and that his hope was for a civil war, prosecutors said.

"You really wish there’d be a civil war?" the roommate, who served as a confidential informant for the government, asks Hale-Cusanelli, according to a transcript of the discussion in a court document.

"Yes," Hale-Cusanelli says.

"Why?" the roommate asks."Because it would provide a clean slate," he replies."Yeah, but then a whole bunch of f***ing people would die?""Yeah," Hale-Cusanelli responds. "Well, you know, as Jefferson said, the price – the tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

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After his arrest within two weeks of the riot, Hale-Cusanelli received a less than honorable discharge from the military and was fired from his job as a private contractor at Naval Weapons Station Earle in Colts Neck.

While in jail awaiting trial, Hale-Cusanelli continued to espouse white supremacist views, drawing "Nazi-styled propaganda cartoons," prosecutors said.

Behind bars, Hale-Cusanelli also used "the power of a fundraising organization spearheaded by his adoptive aunt to organize inmates and curry favor," according to a court document.

One inmate likened the situation to “the movie Mean Girls, but with racist, anti-semitic extremists,” prosecutors said.

His attorney painted a different picture of his incarceration.

From February to June 2021, Hale-Cusanelli was kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day for seven days a week, 18 hours a day thereafter, his attorney, Nicholas D. Smith, said in a court document. His life had been threatened in jail because of the government’s publication of a photo of Hale-Cusanelli's moustache, which made him look like Hitler, he said. Smith wrote in a sentencing memorandum that the moustache was a joke in response to his client's frustration with pandemic lockdowns, which he felt to be onerous.

His co-workers at Earle, however, told investigators about a history of racist and anti-Semitic remarks and behavior. They included Hale-Cusanelli showing up at the base sporting the moustache and telling a Navy petty officer that “Hitler should have finished the job.’’

A jury in Washington, D.C. ,convicted him on May 27 of obstruction of an official proceeding, a felony, and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building - all misdemeanors.

Hale-Cusanelli testified during the trial. He maintained that he did not know Congress sat in the U.S. Capitol building, despite his extensive knowledge of the political process.

In court Thursday, Hale-Cusanelli was found to have obstructed justice during the trial by making certain statements under oath, which led to enhancement to his sentence, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement.

Hale-Cusanelli also wasordered to serve three years of supervised release once his sentence is over and to pay $2,000 in restitution.

The U.S. Attorney's Office was seeking a sentence of 78 months, which it called a mid-range sentence.

More than 870 individuals have been arrested in nearly all 50 states in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Some 265 people have charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers. Arrests have been ongoing.

Ken Serrano covers crime, breaking news and investigations. Reach him at 732-643-4029 or at kserrano@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Capitol insurrection arrests: Timothy Hale-Cusanelli sentenced