Jan. 6 rioter who pinned Capitol police officer sentenced to 7.5 years

April 14 (UPI) -- A Jan. 6 Capitol rioter who pinned a D.C. police officer in a doorway received seven-and-a-half years in prison on Friday, one of the longest prison sentences doled out so far.

Patrick McCaughey, a 23-year-old from Connecticut, was dubbed #ThePinman by online investigators after he pinned a police officer with a shield. Before his sentencing, he apologized to U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden, calling his behavior "monumentally stupid."

"I wish I had better control of myself," he said, according to Politico, calling his behavior "less like a citizen and more like an animal."

As McCaughey pinned officer Daniel Hodges in a Capitol doorway for two minutes, another rioter ripped off the officer's gas mask, stole his baton and beat him with it.

"At a time when we are struggling to field enough police to maintain public safety, Mr. McCaughey took part in an assault that removed 50 officers from duty," Hodges said, according to NBC News.

McFadden said that McCaughey became "a poster child of all that was dangerous and appalling."

However, Friday's sentence was half of the 15 years that federal prosecutors had sought, which would have been the longest sentence in a Jan. 6 case.

Prosecutors had argued that the sentence was justified because McCaughey urged police to go home before he entered the Capitol, and he also took a selfie and showed it to his friends in Connecticut.

According to NBC News, McCaughey's legal team argued that he acted based on a "motivated by a misunderstanding as to the facts surrounding the 2020 election" and that he "knew next to nothing about the 2020 election and listened to sources of information that were clearly false."

McCaughey's sister told the judge that her brother had been radicalized at home, saying their father played only two TV channels in their home "Fox News and Turner Classic Movies."