An ex-Marine who was a part of the far-right Charlottesville rally in 2017 and stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced on Friday to nearly five years in prison.
Tyler Dykes, 26, pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting a police officer and was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison.
Dykes, a native of Bluffton, S.C., sparked and joined several confrontations on the east side of the Capitol, according to federal investigators.
At one point, he celebrated the rioters’ success with a Sieg Heil salute after the mob broke through a police line, though he denied in court his move had been the Nazi salute.
The actions Dykes pleaded guilty to were stealing a riot shield from a Capitol Police officer, then assaulting other officers with that shield inside the building.
Federal prosecutors had asked for a five-year, three-month sentence, arguing Dykes “directly contributed to some of the most extreme violence on the Capitol’s east front.”
Dykes has a history of right-wing extremism. In 2017, he joined the infamous “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., during which white supremacist James Fields killed counter-protester Heather Heyer by driving into a crowd.
At that rally, Dykes was pictured giving the Sieg Heil salute and carrying a lit tiki torch among other extremists.
In March 2023, Dykes pleaded guilty to a felony charge of burning an object with intent to intimidate and received a six-month sentence in Virginia. The law under which he was charged was originally passed to combat the Ku Klux Klan.
After completing his Virginia sentence, Dykes was transferred to federal custody, as investigators determined he also joined the pro-Donald Trump mob that assaulted the U.S. Capitol.
Dykes enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps after dropping out of Cornell University in 2017. He was discharged in March 2023 for “participating in extremist behavior,” according to NBC News.
Though Dykes was sentenced to nearly five years in prison, his term could be much shorter. Republican presidential nominee Trump has said he will likely pardon most or all of the Jan. 6 rioters if he wins the election in November.
More than 1,400 people have been charged with various crimes in connection with the attack, according to the Justice Department. More than 900 have been sentenced.
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio has received the longest prison term of anyone associated with the insurrection.
He was sentenced to 22 years behind bars after being convicted last year of seditious conspiracy for orchestrating and commanding his far-right followers to storm the Capitol.
With News Wire Services
