‘Ashamed of myself.’ KS Proud Boy gets prison sentence for threatening police on Jan. 6

William Chrestman, the Olathe Proud Boy who threatened a federal officer and carried an ax handle into the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot, was sentenced Friday to more than four years in prison and 36 months of supervised release.

In addition to the 55-month sentence, Chrestman, 50, also must pay $2,000 restitution for damage to the Capitol, which the government says totaled more than $2.9 million.

“I’m pretty ashamed of myself,” Chrestman said as he stood before Judge Timothy J. Kelly in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He read a statement apologizing to the court and to his family for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, saying he was “lost in the moment.”

“I’m ashamed of much of what I did that day,” he said, “and I’m ashamed of what my daughters have seen me do.”

Chrestman apologized for missing birthdays, holidays and graduations and apologized that the family was forced to sell the house the kids grew up in and sell possessions.

“My greatest desire is to be a family man again,” he said. “Husband, father, grandfather and son.”

Afterward, Kelly gave Chrestman permission to hug two of his daughters who attended the hearing. He whispered to both, “I’ll be home soon.”

Chrestman already has spent nearly three years in jail, held without bond since his arrest in February 2021. He pleaded guilty in October to obstruction of an official proceeding and threatening a federal officer. He faced a maximum 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, restitution and three years of supervised release on the obstruction charge and six years in prison, a $250,000 fine, restitution and three years’ supervised release on the charge of threatening a federal officer.

The government had requested a sentence of 63 months’ incarceration, which it said represented the top end of the guideline range set by the parties in their plea agreement, along with 36 months’ supervised release and $2,000 restitution.

Prosecutors said the U.S. Army veteran and former sheet metal worker was a “second-degree” Proud Boy who played a key role in the attack. He could be seen in numerous videos alongside other Proud Boys on Jan. 6, 2021, dressed in tactical gear, leading chants and at one point using the ax handle to obstruct metal barriers that had been deployed to prevent the mob from advancing further into the Capitol.

Chrestman is the seventh of the 10 Kansas residents charged in connection with the Capitol riot to be sentenced. He was indicted by a federal grand jury on Feb. 26, 2021, along with three other Kansas City-area Proud Boys — Christopher Kuehne, who at the time lived in Olathe; Ryan Ashlock, of Gardner; and Louis Colon, of Blue Springs — and Arizona siblings Cory and Felicia Konold.

The Proud Boys is an organization of self-described “Western chauvinists” known for street-level violence and confrontations with anti-fascists at protests.

Its members, with the help of another right-wing extremist group called the Oath Keepers, played a pivotal role in the attack on the Capitol, overwhelming police and breaking windows to let throngs of supporters of then-President Donald Trump into the building.

The six with the Kansas City group were charged with conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds. Chrestman also was charged with threatening to assault a federal law enforcement officer and carrying a wooden ax handle in the Capitol building and on the grounds.

In denying Chrestman’s request to be released on bond at a July 2021 hearing, Kelly went through a laundry list of Chrestman’s alleged actions on Jan. 6 that the judge said were captured by dozens of photos and videos. The actions, Kelly said, included Chrestman wielding the ax handle, encouraging the crowd to storm the Capitol and confronting law enforcement, telling an officer that “You shoot and I’ll take your f------ ass out!”

Kelly said that “Mr. Chrestman was much more — much, much more — than someone who merely cheered on the violence or who entered the Capitol after others cleared the way.”

All members of the Kansas City Proud Boys group except Chrestman were released on personal recognizance bonds pending trial. Colon pleaded guilty in April 2022 to one count of civil disorder, a felony. He has yet to be sentenced and faces a maximum five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Ashlock was sentenced in November 2022 to 70 days in jail and 12 months of supervised release after pleading guilty to one misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds.

Kuehne pleaded guilty on Sept. 7 to obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder, a felony. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 23 and faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

The Konolds pleaded guilty on Nov. 1 to obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder and have a Jan. 24 sentencing date.

Bought ax handle the day before riot

In its sentencing memorandum filed last week, the government said Chrestman’s conduct on Jan. 6 “shows that his offense was extensive in scope, planning, and preparation.”

In the lead-up to the riot, the document said, Chrestman communicated with other Proud Boys to figure out what kind of weapons he could carry in Washington, D.C., then bought such a weapon — the ax handle — the day before the attack.

“On January 6, he came prepared for violence, wearing a tactical vest and gloves with knuckle guards,” the government said. “He also had a gas mask with him, which he put on when police officers on the West Plaza began deploying chemical irritant to disperse the crowd.” And he carried a 2-foot-long wooden ax handle with an American flag wrapped around it, the document said, “as a way of disguising the fact that it was a weapon.”

Chrestman and other Proud Boys wore strips of orange duct tape on their clothing “to ensure maximum cohesion, and thus effectiveness of any joint action, of the group,” it said.

“These acts all indicate a premeditated commitment to use violence to achieve the objective of stopping Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote.”

The government said Chrestman played “a significant role during the riot due to his presence and conduct at pivotal moments during the day.” He regularly presented himself as a leader among the mob, the document said, helping create the breach at the Peace Circle outside the Capitol, encouraging others to move toward the barricades, ordering rioters to stop the arrest of a fellow rioter and thanking them for supporting the Proud Boys. Inside the Capitol Visitor Center, it said, Chrestman aided rioters’ pursuit of police officers by using his ax handle to prevent a retractable security barrier from closing.

“Chrestman also used various rallying cries both inside and outside of the Capitol to keep the rioters’ motivations high,” the government said, referring to his leading the mob in call-and-response chants of “Whose house? Our house!” and then telling them to “Take your house!”

Kelly noted those actions during Friday’s sentencing.

“I can’t recall seeing a more direct encouragement of the rioters that day to run through the police and get into the building,” the judge said.

In the aftermath of the riot, the government said, Chrestman was unrepentant and boastful.

“During a telephone call that Chrestman recorded,” the document said, “he bragged about his interference with the police: ‘[W]e had the cops running through the f—ing State Building, dude, trying to slam the emergency doors, like, the big garage door-type ones that segregate off the rooms, and we were throwing f—ing chairs under there to block it dude, to keep going down, dude, and there was so much CS gas in there and shit, dude and—like—dude, the cops were legitimately scared for their f—ing lives.”

Chrestman argued in his own sentencing memorandum that while he carried the ax handle, he did not threaten any specific officer and did not follow up on the threat in any way.

“Mr. Chrestman carried the ax handle the entire day, never once using it to do anything remotely violent,” his sentencing document said. “It is asserted here that, although he made a threat, it was not a credible threat. …he was not within earshot of the officer. He was not armed with any projectile. He was separated from the officer by a line of officers with hardened gear. And, there were crowd members in front of him creating an additional barrier.”

Army veteran and father of three

Chrestman’s memorandum detailed his personal history, including a picture of him and his brother in Boy Scout uniforms. After graduating from high school in California, Chrestman joined the Army and became a medic, it said. He was enlisted from 1992 to 1996 and was stationed in Hawaii.

He has three daughters, the document said — one was born in 2001, another in 2003 and the youngest in 2014.

“Mr. Chrestman is deeply aware that his incarceration has been devastating to his family,” it said. “In addition to the separation and loss of support, his family has experienced harassment, embarrassment and hardship. This weighs heavily on Mr. Chrestman. He accepts responsibility for the difficulty he has caused, but that does not lessen the personal turmoil he feels.”

His sentencing memorandum included letters of support from his daughters, mother, wife, cousin and cousin’s husband. All three daughters wrote glowing letters, describing him as a wonderful and caring father.

The oldest daughter said that “since as early as I can remember my dad has been my hero, my protector and my best friend.”

“From working in the garage on pinewood derby cars, to needing help on my car, hours of playing dolls as a kid, he has always done everything in his power to make his girls happy and to show us that dad will always be there for us.”

His middle daughter said her dad was “the most empathetic, loyal and loving person I’ve ever met.”

“He would do anything he could to spend any free time with his kids,” she wrote, “whether it was taking us on father daughter dates or going skateboarding to the park.”

The youngest daughter drew a picture of her atop her father’s shoulders with the words “Daddy” and “my hero.”

“I miss my daddy so, so much,” she wrote, saying he used to take her to their favorite barbecue joint once a week and taught her how to skateboard. He’d missed her First Holy Communion, she said, and her 7th, 8th and 9th birthdays. “...So please Judge Kelly be kind to me and my daddy. Please let my daddy come home.”

Kelly, a Trump appointee, has handled numerous Proud Boys cases. In September, he sentenced the organization’s former national chairman Enrique Tarrio to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges involving his role in organizing a mob of Trump supporters to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6. Tarrio’s sentence is the longest to date in connection with the riot.

Three other fellow Proud Boys found guilty of seditious conspiracy were sentenced shortly before Tarrio to prison terms of 15 to 18 years. Another, who broke a Capitol window with a stolen police riot shield, was acquitted of the seditious conspiracy charge but sentenced to 10 years for other felonies.

Members of the far-right group have been prime targets of the federal investigation into the Capitol attack. Authorities rounded up dozens from around the country on charges including assault of law enforcement officers, civil disorder and sedition.

The group received national attention in September 2020 when, during the first presidential debate, Trump was asked if he was willing to condemn “white supremacists and militia groups.” Trump responded that the Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by.”

Today, Trump and other GOP hard-liners refer to Chrestman and the other incarcerated Jan. 6 defendants as “political prisoners” and “hostages.”

And if re-elected, Trump has repeatedly said he would be “inclined to pardon” many of them.