A Virginia man who wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt inside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot was sentenced to 75 days in prison on Thursday.
Robert Keith Packer was arrested one week after the Capitol riot and pleaded guilty in January to a misdemeanor charge of unlawful picketing and parading.
U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, sentenced Packer during a virtual court hearing. Nichols described the sweatshirt as “incredibly offensive” but said there was no evidence that Packer used violence against officers.
MAN IN ‘CAMP AUSCHWITZ’ SWEATSHIRT AT CAPITOL RIOT ARRESTED
(CNN) – A rioter who stormed the US Capitol Wednesday wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the phrase “Camp Auschwitz” has been identified as Robert Keith Packer of Virginia, according to three sources who spoke with @CNN.
https://t.co/9CfUl6A36h pic.twitter.com/7Nx5xOqobb— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) January 10, 2021
The clothing in question depicted a human skull above the words “Camp Auschwitz,” and the back of the sweatshirt read “Staff.” It also included the phrase “Work Brings Freedom,” a rough translation of the words above the entrance gate of Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland where Nazis killed more than 1 million people during World War II.
Defense attorney Stephen Brennwald acknowledged that Packer’s sweatshirt was “seriously offensive” but said it shouldn’t be a sentencing factor due to the First Amendment right to free speech.
Packer also told the FBI during its investigation that he stood near another rioter, Ashli Babbitt, when a police officer shot and killed her as she tried to climb through a broken window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby.
“He told the agents he heard the shot and saw her fall back from the window she was trying to climb through,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Mona Furst, the prosecutor in the case, wrote in court filings.
Packer, a self-employed pipe fitter, was allowed to remain free while awaiting sentencing after his arrest in 2021. Prosecutors alleged he had an extensive criminal record, with nearly 21 convictions for mostly motor vehicle violations, including drunken driving.
Brennwald noted that Packer was offended when he was labeled by the media as a white supremacist due to his belief that “he doesn’t see himself that way at all.” The attorney added that Packer wanted to sue House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for linking him to white supremacy during a press conference days after the riot.
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There have been more than 870 people charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot. Nearly 400 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor charges.
More than 250 of those defendants have been sentenced, and nearly half of them have been imprisoned, with sentences ranging between seven days and 10 years.
