Far-right troll Baked Alaska sentenced to 60 days in prison for role in Jan 6 riots
Anthime Gionet livestreamed himself storming the Capitol and berating law enforcement officers during mob’s assault
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Far-right internet troll and streaming personality Anthime Gionet, better known as Baked Alaska, has been sentenced to 60 days in prison with two years of probation for his role in the attack on the US Capitol in 2021.
The conspiracy theorist was sentenced in US District Court in Washington DC on 10 January. He also is required to pay a $2,000 fine.
Gionet pleaded guilty on 22 July to one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, after he live-streamed himself on the platform DLive for more than 20 minutes from inside the Capitol on 6 January, 2021, including using a phone inside a Senate office.
Federal prosecutors alleged that he “conducted an approximately 27-minute long” stream from inside the Capitol, where Gionet and others can be heard chanting “patriots are in control”, “whose house? our house” and “traitors, traitors, traitors”.
The government’s case argued that Gionet said “fight for Trump,” “let’s go, America first” and “let’s go, 1776” during the assault, fuelled by Donald Trump’s baseless narrative that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him.
Gionet – who filmed a music video for his song “We Love Our Cops” – also berated a law enforcement officer during the riot, saying “you’re a f****** oathbreaker, you piece of s***”, “f*** you” and “you broke your oath to the constitution,” according to federal prosecutors.
“This was a fraudulent election. We’re standing up for truth, God’s truth,” he says in the video, according to court filings.
Gionet – dubbed a “professional troll” by federal prosecutors – was banned from several social media platforms after posting antisemitic and white nationalist memes, and he has marched among hate groups in Charlottesville, Virginia and New Orleans. The Southern Poverty Law Center identifies him as a white nationalist.
After his Twitter account was permanently suspended in 2017 for violating the company’s terms regarding “repeated and/or or non-consensual slurs, epithets, racist and sexist tropes, or other content that degrades someone,” he returned to the platform under new ownership from Elon Musk.
“I’ve waited over 2 years for this court case to be over [and] finally tomorrow I’ll be sentenced in DC federal court for live streaming January 6,” he wrote on the platform on Monday.
“I love you guys so much, I’ve learned a lot since then [and] grown to be a better person. Please pray for God’s will to be done,” he said.
“You did everything you could to publicize your misconduct,” US District Judge Trevor McFadden told Gionet on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. “You were there encouraging and participating fully in what was going on.”
He condemned his actions as “pretty shocking” and “the culmination of a petty crime spree”, according to Politico.
More than 950 people have been arrested within the two years after the violent insurrection attempt, according to the US Department of Justice.
Nearly 300 people were charged with with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees, including roughly 100 people charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer. Approxiamately 140 officers were injured in the attack, including 80 members of the US Capitol Police and 60 officers with Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police Department.