ATLANTA -- A Georgia man will spend 45 days in jail and three years on probation after a federal judge told him Friday that she was unconvinced he was remorseful for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
Blas Santillan, a 27-year-old amateur mixed martial arts fighter, was caught on video during the riot emerging from the Capitol Rotunda and exhorting the crowd to action.
"I'm the only one that was willing to kick that door," he shouted. "You do not know what freedom is. ... Freedom is doing what you want."
Appearing via videoconference before Judge Florence Pan of the Washington, D.C., District Court, Santillan was more reserved.
"I am very sorry for how I reacted to the situation and the involvement that I had in the Capitol," he said. "I feel like everybody lost that day."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Amore said his interview with the FBI before sentencing Friday showed that "he doesn't have a full comprehension" of his role in the riot.
"He claimed that the police officers didn't have an issue with the rioters," Amore said.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 140 police officers were assaulted during the riot, which caused more than $2.7 million in damages to the Capitol.
Although video evidence showed that Santillan did not assault police or cause damage, Amore noted that he remained in the Rotunda for 45 minutes until a squad of police in riot gear arrived and cleared the area.
"He was not a passive bystander, but an eager participant," Amore said.
Santillan was arrested at his home in Clayton seven months after the riot. He accepted a deal to plead guilty to one of the four misdemeanors with which he was charged in May.
He will not have to start serving his sentence for a while. Pan allowed him to report to jail after a Nov. 5 fight in Tupelo, Miss.
Santillan had asked to be sentenced to community service and no time in jail or probation, but his past worked against him. Unlike many of the other misdemeanor offenders, Amore said Santillan had prior convictions for statutory rape, DUI and obstruction of police, as well as multiple probation violations that landed him in jail for months, and in one case, 550 days.
Kira West, Santillan's attorney, blamed her client's behavior on the political rhetoric that stoked the attack.
"He was duped by President [Donald] Trump into thinking the election was stolen," she said.
Santillan did not say much at his sentencing, but in a letter to the judge filed with the case, he acknowledged the five people who died in the Jan. 6 riot.
He wrote that the deaths left "five empty spaces at the dinner table" for those families. However, he also wrote that he had "lost very much" and should not be punished further.
"I don't think he regrets what he or the mob did," Pan said.