Conservative native Brent Bozell IV was sentenced to nearly 4 years in prison in the Jan. 6 case

WASHINGTON — A man whose family members were key architects of the American conservative movement was sentenced Friday to nearly four years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Federal prosecutors had asked for more than 11 years in prison for Brent Bozell IV, son of Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell III and nephew of Joe McCarthy speechwriter Brent Bozell Jr., who was William F. Buckley Jr.’s brother-in-law and ghost-wrote Barry Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative.”

Judge John Bates sentenced the younger Bozell on Friday to 45 months in prison and $4,727 in restitution for his role in the Capitol attack.

On January 6, 2021, Bozell joined the pro-Trump mob as he broke the police line and broke windows during the initial breach of the Capitol. He was side-by-side with members of the far-right Proud Boys group, as well as an anti-abortion rights lawyer accused of plotting to kill FBI employees who worked on his January 6 case.

Bozell walked into the Senate gallery and then onto the Senate floor. He also joined the crowd during another violent breach of the Capitol rotunda doors, which allowed other rioters to storm the building.

Prosecutors say Bozell “led the charge” on Jan. 6 because he “believed the presidential election had been ‘stolen’ and thus planned to respond with violence.” They are seeking an enhanced sentence for terrorism — the same given to five members of the Proud Boys, four of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy — saying Bozell’s actions “showed a clear intent to stop Congress from certifying the election results by using both of physical force as well as destruction of property,” conduct that “is a quintessential example of intent to influence and retaliate against government conduct by intimidation or coercion and warrants the application of the terrorism enhancement.”

Prosecutors also cited Bozell’s comments that “the siege of the Capitol was morally justified” and his references to former Vice President Mike Pence as a “traitor” as evidence of his intent to engage in an act of domestic terrorism.

In a court filing this week, prosecutors said they obtained sentence enhancements for terrorism in a handful of cases since Jan. 6, including against Proud Boys like Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison , the longest sentence of all Januarys. 6 case.

Prosecutors also said Bozell “made outrageous justifications for his conduct on Jan. 6 that were both inconsistent with the video evidence and implausible” during his testimony at the trial, which led to his conviction in September on a number of charges, including five felonies.

Bozell was caught with the help of online detectives as well as local residents who recognized him because he was wearing a sweatshirt bearing the name of the school his children attended in Pennsylvania.

The prosecution’s sentencing memo states that Bozell texted his brother to try to get his father to withdraw his public condemnation of the violence after Jan. 6. His defense attorneys wrote that Bozell was part of a family that was “too personally and emotionally ‘invested’ in the final outcome of the 2020 election” and that Bozell was “ashamed of breaking the windows of the US Capitol Building and entered through them”.

Bozell’s father wrote a letter of support, saying he had “remained silent for the last 3 1/2 years” so as not to “throw away the apple cart of justice” which he, but now believes – especially because of the decision to to seek an enhancement of the terrorism conviction – that “there is more at stake” in his son’s case.

“I am not pleading my son’s innocence, only that his punishment fits the crime. I am asking the Court to consider my son’s character which is excellent and is defended by absolutely everyone around him,” Bozell III wrote.

Bozell III founded the Parents Television and Media Council in 1995 when his son, now in his mid-40s, was a teenager. The organization targeted shows like “Friends,” “Dawson’s Creek” and “Spin City,” along with video games like “Mortal Kombat.” Bozell III said during the 2016 presidential campaign that Donald Trump “might be the biggest charlatan of them all,” but has turned to Trump’s defense, even writing a 2019 book titled “Unmasked: Big Media’s War Against Trump”.

Bozell’s grandfather was “convicted of assaulting a police officer with a five-foot wooden cross” after leading an anti-abortion attack on a Washington, DC clinic in 1970, according to his 1997 obituary in The Washington Post.

In the more than three years since the Capitol attack, federal prosecutors have charged more than 1,424 defendants and obtained more than 1,019 convictions. Of the 884 defendants who were convicted, 541 received prison terms ranging from a few days behind bars to Tarrio’s 22-year prison sentence.