A former California police chief who spread conspiracy theories about Jan. 6 was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison on Thursday for his participation in the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Alan Hostetter was found guilty in July after he represented himself at a bench trial. Hostetter, who was the chief of the La Habra, California, Police Department in 2010, was charged in July 2021.
Hostetter, like GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and many far-right members of Congress, has spread conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 attack. Ramaswamy said, without evidence, during the Republican debate on Wednesday night that Jan. 6 "now does look like it was an inside job," while Hostetter said during his trial that he believed "that the entire thing was staged."
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Hostetter, who was found to have carried a hatchet during the attack, also founded a group called the American Phoenix Project that protested Covid restrictions and denied the 2020 election results. He recorded a video after Donald Trump lost the election in which he said that “traitors need to be executed" and promoted Jan. 6 as the final day when patriots could make their stand.
Read more at NBCNews.com.
