A Southern California man who photographed himself while helping to trash the Senate Parliamentarian’s office, stole a bottle of alcohol and then smoked marijuana in a Senator’s office during the Jan. 6 riot was sentenced Monday to four years in federal prison.
Erik Herrera, a photographer from El Cajon, was arrested in Los Angeles in 2021 and in 2002 was convicted of obstruction and disorderly conduct charges related to his role in the breach of the Capitol building.
Herrera was among a crowd of pro-Trump supporters who breached the Capitol building during a riot that forced Congressional leaders to flee for safety and temporarily delayed the counting of electoral votes and the certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Jurors were shown a photo Herrerra posted of himself on his Instagram account, wearing a pink respirator mask, goggles and a bulletproof vest while holding what appear to be a stack of documents within the Senate Parliamentarian’s office. The image showed items tossed on the ground, and another man with his feet up on a desk behind Herrera. As he left the building, Herrera hoisted a bottle of alcohol he had taken from the Senate office and made a fist pump, according to prosecutors.
Herrera wrote in a caption to the photo “I’m reclaiming Aztlan because I love America.” Asked by another Instagram user about the photo, Herrera responded “I wasn’t thinking much, I just wanted a goofy ‘(expletive) you’ picture,” according to court filings.
Prosecutors say Herrerra went back into the Capitol building and entered an unnamed Senator’s “hideaway” office, where he took photos and video, including images of him smoking marijuana.
See also: List: These Southern California residents are accused of taking part in the Capitol riot
Herrera testified that he came to the Capitol the day of the riot to document the event as a photojournalist, and argued that his comments on social media were simply “banter.” He previously claimed that he “did what I had to do for both photojournalism and our people,” and said of his actions in the Senate office, “All I did was throw some paper in the air.”
Prosecutors acknowledged in a sentencing brief filed with the court that Herrera had told some local media outlets in California that he would be going to Washington D.C. in order to cover a “MAGA rally” and report “inside any plausible right-wing autonomous zones.”
However, prosecutors wrote, Herrera made “a number of incriminating statements” before and after Jan. 6, including comments “indicating he was unhappy with the results of the 2020 Presidential Election” and that “he believed President Biden had not been legitimately elected.” Prosecutors added that those comments made clear that Herrera’s “actions on January 6 were driven by much more than his self-proclaimed profession of ‘photojournalism.’”
More than a dozen people with Southern California ties have been convicted for their roles in the Capitol riot, with most receiving short stints behind bars or supervised release or community service after admitting to what most-often amounted to trespassing in restricted areas. More than two-dozen locals have been charged in connection to the insurrection.
Source: Orange County Register
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