LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A judge sentenced a Las Vegas man, who said he “naively supported the former president as violence escalated” on Jan. 6, to three years in prison during a hearing Wednesday.
Last summer, Nathaniel “Nate” DeGrave pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers. As part of his plea agreement, DeGrave was released from custody and allowed to return to Nevada.
Judge Dabney Friedrich sentenced DeGrave to 37 months in prison, records showed. Friedrich also ordered DeGrave to pay a $25,000 fine and $2,000 restitution.
In documents filed last week, federal prosecutors had asked Friedrich to sentence DeGrave to a 37-month term.
“I’ve lost a lot since I’ve been in here,” DeGrave told the 8 News Now Investigators from jail in a 2021 interview. “We’re not extremists. We’re not domestic terrorists.”
On the day of the riot, DeGrave, Ronald “Ronnie” Sandlin, and a third man, Josiah Colt, of Idaho, met in a hotel room in Maryland and later entered the Capitol. Prosecutors said DeGrave assaulted at least two U.S. Capitol Police officers and was armed with bear spray, according to documents.
“DeGrave later bragged to Colt, ‘I punched this guy, like, five times,’ adding, ‘he didn’t see my face though,’” prosecutors wrote in court documents. “After breaching the Senate Chamber, DeGrave shouted down at Colt and others on the Senate floor to open the doors on that level as well as ‘take laptops, paperwork, take everything, all that [expletive].’”
Sandlin is currently serving his 63-month sentence.
In the months after Jan. 6, DeGrave raised more than $120,000 where he called himself “a political prisoner,” prosecutors said.
DeGrave’s attorney, William Shipley, had asked the judge for a two-year sentence.
“I want to start by expressing deep regret for my actions on January 6, which caused fear and harm to both the victims and our democratic institutions,” DeGrave wrote to the judge last week. “I initially sought connection and income but naively supported the former president as violence escalated. I take full responsibility for my actions and my harmful, irresponsible statements.”
In addition to helping prosecutors, DeGrave said he mentored other jail inmates and learned Spanish.
The FBI has arrested four people from the Las Vegas area arrested for their alleged roles on Jan. 6.
