Wednesday 17th November 2021
After storming the Capitol
“QAnon-Shaman” has to go to prison
Buffalo hat, tattoos and America flag: this is the appearance with which Jacob Chansley, known as the “QAnon Shaman”, went down in history after he stormed the Capitol with fellow soldiers on January 6, 2021. A US court sentenced him to prison.
Jacob Chansley, known as the “QAnon Shaman” in his buffalo-horn fur hat during the attack on the US Capitol, has been sentenced to almost three and a half years in prison. A federal judge in the US capital Washington sentenced the 34-year-old to a 41-month prison term. That equates to three years and five months in prison.
Chansley aka Jake Angeli pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official transaction in September. The public prosecutor subsequently demanded 51 months and thus more than four years in prison for him. In theory, Chansley would have threatened up to 20 years in prison. The man from Phoenix, Arizona, stormed the Capitol on January 6th along with other supporters of the elected President Donald Trump.
Pictures of Chansley with a bare torso full of tattoos, a painted face, a fur hat with buffalo horns and a spear with a US flag went around the world. The self-proclaimed “shaman” and supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory thus became one of the most famous Capitol attackers – and a face of the violence of January 6th. According to the US judiciary, Chansley was one of the first 30 attackers who stormed into the interior of the parliament building. He penetrated into the Senate Chamber.
The 34-year-old was arrested a few days after the storm on the Capitol and has been in custody ever since. Radical Trump supporters stormed the congress building when the victory of Democrat Joe Biden in the presidential election on November 3, 2020 was to be certified. Five people died during or on the verge of the violence, including a police officer and an attacker who was shot by the police. According to the Justice Department, more than 570 people were arrested in the course of the far-reaching investigation into the storming of the Capitol. More than 650 people were charged.