Federal prosecutors are seeking a 12-year, seven-month prison sentence for Alan Hostetter, a former La Habra police chief-turned yoga instructor and activist who joined the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Hostetter planned for weeks prior to the unrest on Jan. 6, conspired to collect and transport weapons across the country, and while armed with a hatchet “joined his co-conspirators and a mob of other rioters” during the insurrection, federal prosecutors wrote in a newly filed brief in preparation for the former chief’s upcoming sentencing.
“Hostetter has shown himself to be a man eager to stoke the fires of revolution and to assume the role of a leader of the revolution he fantasizes is coming,” Prosecutors wrote. “Hostetter talked repeatedly in advance of January 6 in the language of ‘war’ and ‘revolution.’ He discussed the ‘tyrants and traitors’ and the need for ‘executions’ of his political enemies. His delusion of grandeur — to see himself as the main player in a grand conspiracy centered on January 6, 2021 — further demonstrate the danger Hostetter poses to the community in the future.”
A federal judge earlier this year ruled that Hostetter was guilty of four counts, including conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding and entering a restricted area with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
“Even if Mr. Hostetter sincerely believed — which it appears he did — that the election was fraudulent, that President Trump was the rightful winner, and that public officials committed treason, as a former police chief he still must have known it was unlawful to vindicate that perceived injustice by engaging in mob violence to obstruct Congress,” U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said.
Hostetter — until recently a San Clemente resident — acted as his own attorney and opted for a bench trial in which a judge, rather than a jury, decided his guilt or innocence. Hostetter during his trial downplayed the violence at the Capitol, describing the riot as “basically the equivalent of a three-hour hissy fit.” He has repeatedly argued the events of Jan. 6 were the result of a “federal setup.”
Hostetter spent more than two-decades as a law enforcement officer, rising to the level of deputy chief within the Fontana Police Department and then briefly leading the La Habra Police department before taking a disability retirement. He had a second career as a yoga instructor before emerging as a vocal critic of pandemic-era health restrictions.
Along with Russell Taylor — a Ladera Ranch entrepreneur and a fellow member of the Orange County conservative activist community — Hostetter founded the American Phoenix project, an organization that initially fought state COVID-19 policies and then later shifted focus to backing then-President Trump’s disproven claims of voter fraud.
Hostetter drove to Washington D.C. for Jan. 6 with “war and revolution on his mind,” prosecutors wrote, bringing “tactical gear, a helmet, hatchets, knives, stun batons, pepper spray and other gear” with him. While he did not personally engage in violence on Jan. 6, prosecutors say he joined the “mob” and described him as “a gifted and charismatic public speaker” who “used those gifts to stoke the fires of rebellion and call for war.”
“His intent was to make members of Congress afraid they might be murdered,” prosecutors wrote. “Because his preferred candidate lost an election. Hostetter likes to wrap himself fin the American flag and take on the role of freedom fighter, but there is nothing patriotic or American about calling for violence — or threatening violence — to achieve your political aims. That is not patriotism. That is terrorism.”
Hostetter is scheduled to be sentenced in a Washington D.C. courtroom on Dec. 7. He has not yet filed his own sentencing brief, court records show.
