Bob's Burgers actor gets year in prison for US Capitol riots

Comedian Jay Johnston has been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for his involvement in the 6 January Capitol riot.

He had pleaded guilty in July to a felony count of interfering with law enforcement officers who were trying to stop a mob of Trump supporters from storming the US Capitol.

Johnston, 56, has acting credits in Hollywood going back to the mid-1990s and was fired from his role on animated series Bob’s Burgers in December 2021after being identified as a possible rioter.

Prosecutors had sought a longer prison sentence for Johnston, whose lawyers argued back that the US has “persistently overstated” the actor’s role in the attack.

Johnston briefly addressed a Washington DC court on Monday before his sentencing, ABC News reported, and described his role in the attack as “reprehensible”.

Judge Carl Nichols mentioned Johnston’s successful acting career as a reason for his participation being “all the more inexplicable and troubling”.

Based on body camera and CCTV footage, authorities have said Johnston “participated with other rioters in a group assault” on police officers protecting a Capitol entrance and “helped carry a stolen police riot shield out”.

One police officer was injured at that western entrance.

According to US prosecutors, Johnston showed little remorse for his actions while demonstrating “a clear knowledge of, and participation in, the violence used by rioters that day”.

As evidence, prosecutors referred to a picture showing Johnston dressed up as the so-called “QAnon Shaman” at a Halloween party two years after the 2021 incident.

Prosecutors also said that Johnston sent messages to friends and family in the days after the riot, claiming the severity of the attacks were “exaggerated by the media”.

Johnston’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward, wrote in a sentencing memo that his client has been unfairly targeted “because he is an acclaimed Hollywood actor, and the government is using his status to make a point to the public”.

Johnston has “essentially been blacklisted by Hollywood” and “has worked as a handyman for the last two years – an obvious far cry from his actual expertise and livelihood in film and television”, Mr Woodward argued.

Johnston had supporting roles in the hit comedy film Anchorman, and in television on Mr Show, Arrested Development and Bob’s Burgers, where he voiced fan-favourite character Italian restaurateur Jimmy Pesto.

Nearly 1,500 people have been charged in connection with the 6 January 2021 riot.

Almost 900 have pleaded guilty to various crimes, and more than 180 have been convicted at trial, according to US justice department figures.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he would pardon some or all of the rioters – whom he has called “hostages” and “political prisoners” – if he won the 5 November election.

He has not given details about who he would release or what criteria he would use to select them.