Fellows, from Upstate New York, chose to represent himself through most of his legal proceedings and was found in contempt at his trial after calling U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden a “modern-day Nazi” running a “kangaroo court.”
“In all my years as a judge, and before that as a litigator, I have never seen such contemptuous conduct,” McFadden said at Thursday’s sentencing, recalling that Fellows also made “lewd comments” to his probation officer, “outlandish accusations” against prosecutors and heckling remarks to the jury as the verdicts were being read.
“There is no grand conspiracy here against you,” the judge said as Fellows kept interrupting. “It’s time for you to grow up!”
Fellows, who is also a chimney repairman, was not charged with violent conduct, but prosecutors described him as a “cheerleader” for the riotous mob. He tried to prevent the FBI from finding him by wrapping his cellphone in foil and wiping his data. Fellows, they said, entered the Capitol through a broken window after attending Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse.
He smoked pot in an office assigned to Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), “paraded” through the Capitol crypt with other rioters, taunted law enforcement officers, posed for photographs on a Capitol Police motorcycle outside the building, and then raved about the attack in media interviews and social media posts, prosecutors said.
“He told the jury he was having a blast,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Carolina Nevin said Thursday. When the FBI caught up with him, she said, Fellows asked for a marker to write the word “liberty” on his forehead for his mug shot. He blamed police officers for their own injuries and showed no remorse for his actions, Nevin argued.
In a court filing Tuesday that he conceded was “rambling,” Fellows continued to assert that “the election was stolen, and we had and have a right to go in and throw the people out who made this happen.” At his sentencing, he gave a 45-minute PowerPoint presentation railing against “crazy people who say a man can get pregnant,” accusing prosecutors of telling lies and bemoaning the “minimum of 23,736 hours” he had spent in jail “being treated like a terrorist without any constitutional rights.”
A liberal activist who interrupted now-Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court in 2018 had gotten off with a much lighter sentence than he would get, Fellows argued.
“I did not think I committed any crimes,” he said, adding later, “Officers were letting people in … saying, ‘Treat this place with respect, guys,’ which seems pretty welcoming.” Outside the Capitol, people with bullhorns were claiming Vice President Mike Pence had already certified Biden’s election, although that turned out to be inaccurate, he said.
Judges are required by law to explain the reasoning behind the sentences they impose, and they seldom appreciate it when people in the courtroom add their own running commentary. As he began to announce the punishment, McFadden barely got three sentences out before earning his first jeer from the defendant.
The judge said Fellows and others who had smoked pot in the Capitol had treated it like a “frat house” and shown “utter disrespect for our first branch…
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