Man who attacked six police officers on January 6 is sentenced to 5 years in prison

A Florida man was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for assaulting at least six police officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, including an officer who said the attack prompted him to retire early. announced.

Prosecutors described the man, Kenneth Bonawitz, 58, of Pompano Beach, Florida, in court papers as “one of the most violent rioters of January 6.” He was also sentenced to 36 months of supervised release following his time in prison and fined $2,000 by Judge Jia M. Cobb of the U.S. District Court in Washington. prosecutors said.

Mr. Bonawitz, who was arrested in January 2023, pleaded guilty in August to three charges: civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting a law enforcement officer during a civil disorder, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors asked the judge in a memorandum to sentence Mr. Bonawitz to the maximum prison term of 71 months, just under six years. In the memo, they included victim statements from two of the officers who were attacked.

Mr. Bonawitz's lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday evening. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia declined to comment.

On January 5, 2021, Mr. Bonawitz left his home and took an overnight bus to DC to attend President Trump's rally, which was to coincide with Congress' certification of the results of the 2020 election, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Mr. Bonawitz was a member of the Miami chapter of the far-right group Proud Boys.

After the meeting, Mr. Bonawitz was part of a gang that populated the west side of the Capitol, prosecutors said. Just before 2:30 p.m., they said, he was among the wave of rioters who overran a police line outside the West Plaza.

According to court records, Mr. Bonawitz stormed the stage built for the upcoming presidential inauguration.

“He then ran across the entire stage, raised his arms, threw himself into the air as the stage ended, and used his outstretched arms” to tackle two U.S. Capitol Police officers standing at the bottom of a staircase. said in the sentencing memorandum.

One of the officers, Sgt. Federico A. Ruiz said he saw Mr. Bonawitz “jumping up and down” on stage “with a smile on his face, as if he were on top of the world.”

“His attitude and behavior struck me as someone who was having a good time that day,” Sergeant Ruiz wrote in a victim impact statement. In it, he explained that Mr. Bonawitz's attack left him with injuries and emotional trauma that recently forced him to take early retirement.

Sergeant Ruiz and other officers became involved in an altercation with Mr. Bonawitz, who is 6 feet tall and weighs nearly 300 pounds, before confiscating an 8-inch knife he had strapped to his hip, prosecutors said.

Mr. Bonawitz then attacked another group of officers who were trying to re-establish the police line.

“In the span of ten seconds, Bonawitz assaulted four officers by pushing, shoving and punching them, as well as placing one officer in a chokehold and lifting her off the ground,” prosecutors said in their sentencing memo.

Mr. Bonawitz only stopped his attacks when officers spotted a chemical agent on his face, prosecutors said.

Shortly after Mr. Bonawitz was sprayed, he was interviewed on videotape and described what had happened, prosecutors said. A reporter asked his name and origin, and he replied: “Ken Bonawitz, Florida.”

So far, authorities have charged more than 1,265 people who participated in the Capitol breach, according to the Justice Department. Just over a third of them, 440, were charged with “assaulting or obstructing” law enforcement. The most common charge is entering or remaining on restricted federal lands. More than 720 people have pleaded guilty or been convicted. Their sentences range from just a few days in prison to more than twenty years in prison.

In his victim impact statement, Sergeant Ruiz made a comparison between his experience on January 6 and that of September 11, 2001 as a medical responder at the Pentagon.

“I did not fear for my life as much as on January 6, when my fellow countrymen turned against me and attacked me as if I were an enemy,” he wrote.