An owner of a Georgia business has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for his role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Jack Wade Whitton, 34, of Locust Grove, attacked a police officer with a metal crutch and dragged him into a mob of rioters on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. In addition to assaulting law enforcement officers, he boasted in a text message that he “fed him to the people.”
Whitton was arrested in April 2021 and charged with various offenses related to his actions during the insurrection. Last year, he admitted to his assault charge but claimed he was not a political person and had never been a troublemaker. However, videos of Whitton’s attacks on police were described as “gruesome” by the judge who told him that he was “out of control.”
Prosecutors claimed that Whitton and his co-defendant, Justin Jersey, carried out attacks on police that led to a violent surge on the Lower West Terrace. Despite Whitton’s claims that he was not responsible for his actions, evidence of his violent behavior undermined these assertions.
Over 1,350 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot, with many already sentenced to prison terms. Whitton’s sentencing is part of ongoing efforts to hold participants in the insurrection accountable for their actions.
