A social media post shows Marine veteran Hector Vargas, who was convicted for his part in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot in Washington, D.C., received on Friday, April 21, 2023, a four-month prison sentence. (DOJ court documents)
(Tribune News Service) — A Jersey City man and former Marine convicted at trial last year of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Friday to four months in prison.
A federal jury in December convicted Hector Vargas Santos, 29, of four misdemeanors for illegally entering, remaining and being disruptive or disorderly in the Capitol. The judge on Friday sentenced him to four months for each charge, to run concurrently, plus a $2,500 fine and $500 in restitution. He’s been free on his own recognizance since his 2021 arrest.
Among the evidence against him were several photos and videos of him outside and inside the Capitol that day, and his own social media posts, one that was a video selfie he recorded in the Rotunda, exclaiming, “we took over this mother------, we took over this Capitol.”
Federal prosecutors had argued Santos receive a 21-month prison term, followed by 12 months of supervised release. His defense attorney argued for probation.
In presentence reports, the attorneys presented different views of Santos’ behavior inside the Capitol.
Federal prosecutors Kyle R. Mirabelli and Kimberly L. Paschall described Santos as being at the vanguard of the initial surges that turned protesters into rioters.
Santos opened a security gate, allowing people to advance toward the building, assisted another rioter in climbing a Capitol wall and climbed atop a scaffolding and waved a flag, encouraging the crowd.
Inside, he ignored police commands and pulled out his phone to record the scene, and wore a tactical vest on Jan. 6.
Before Jan. 6, Santos tried to join the right-wing extremism group, the Proud Boys, made an assortment of social media posts in which he chronicled his participation in other violent protests.
And, the prosecutors wrote, he tried to organize a group to paint over a “Black Lives Matter” mural on Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation’s capital.
Santos’ attorneys, Paul F. Enzinna and Nandan Kenkeremath, said their client, who they referred to as Hector Vargas, was only in the Capitol for seven minutes, had his hands in the air in submission and followed police instructions to leave along a specific route.
“To be sure,” the defense attorneys wrote, other people inside the Capitol that day were unauthorized and acted improperly. “But whatever anyone else did on January 6, 2021, Hector Vargas’ offense was simply being present.”
After being arrested on Jan. 19, 2021, their client freely admitted his conduct to federal investigators, the attorneys wrote.
As for the video selfie, the lawyers wrote: “He did later post a video claiming to have ‘t[aken] over’ the Capitol, but this was bravado, rather than an accurate report of his conduct.”
Enzinna and Kenkeremath also portrayed Santos as a troubled man who has struggled in life.
His father was killed in a vehicle crash in 2001, he’s estranged from his mother due to political and religious differences and has no contact with three sisters, nor his 2-year-old daughter and her mother. He does pay child support, though, his attorneys say.
Since being honorably discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps, his education – he was studying acting in New York City - was stifled by the pandemic, and his life has only started to look better since he’s started driving in truck in late 2022.
Prison would jeopardize his recent successes to being a productive member of society, his lawyers argued. He’s been homeless, lived in a shelter for veterans and struggled with PTSD.
Although arrested in 2020 for domestic violence-related charges, the case dismissed, so Santos has no criminal records for sentencing purposes, prosecutors said in their report.
Federal prosecutors also noted that Santos told a federal investigator that during his time in the Marines, from 2011 to 2015, he was demoted for stealing an iPhone. And while he had no combat deployments, prosecutors say, he reported a PTSD disability from his service.
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