Former police officer who testified against friend avoids prison for January 6

A former Virginia police officer who testified against a friend and former supervisor whom he joined on Capitol Hill in the Jan. 6 insurrection avoided jail time Tuesday for his role in it.

Former Rocky Mount Police Officer Jacob Fracker has pleaded guilty to conspiring with his fellow officer to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory on then-President Donald Trump and was sentenced to a year of probation, with 59 days of home confinement.

tax did not seek jail time for Fracker, noting his substantial cooperation and Testimony at the trial of former Rocky Mount Police Sgt. Thomas Robertson. Fracker’s cooperation came at a “great personal cost,” prosecutors said, noting that Robertson was not only a colleague of Fracker’s but also a father figure he sometimes referred to as “Dad.”

Robertson, an Army veteran who was convicted by a jury to attack the Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote on January 6, 2021, he was sentenced last week to more than seven years behind bars. That coincides with the longest prison sentence yet among hundreds of Capitol riot cases.

Fracker, a Marine Corps veteran, told the jury that Robertson had invited him to Washington, DC, to see trump speaks. The two off-duty officers traveled to Washington in the morning with a third man and donned gas masks as they approached the Capitol and joined the crowd of rioters.

During his sentencing hearing in federal court in Washington, Fracker apologized for his actions.

“Yes, I was there with someone else. Yes, I was there because I trusted him with lies, but he didn’t tell me how to act that day. I acted on my own and for that I apologize,” Fracker told the judge.

Prosecutors said they would not have known that Robertson destroyed two cellphones containing incriminating videos and photos taken on Jan. 6 without Fracker’s cooperation. His testimony also helped prosecutors “establish Robertson’s corrupt intent” to obstruct the congressional process without having to rely on Robertson’s social media posts, prosecutors wrote.

Fracker is the first defendant on Jan. 6 to be sentenced on a conspiracy conviction and the first defendant to be sentenced after reaching a cooperation agreement with prosecutors.

Rocky Mount, a town of about 5,000 people about a four-hour drive southwest of Washington, fired Robertson and Fracker after the deadly riot.

Robertson and Fracker are among about 850 people charged with federal crimes for their conduct on Jan. 6. More than 350 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors, and more than 230 have been sentenced.

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Follow AP coverage related to the January 6 insurrection at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege.

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