Samuel Fox was inside the U.S. Capitol for only two minutes during the riot there on Jan. 6, 2021.

He didn’t engage in any violence.

He didn’t take anything.

He had no weapons, no tactical gear and a barely charged cellphone.

For those reasons, a judge ruled Tuesday, the Latrobe business owner will serve three years’ probation, with the first two months on house arrest. He also must pay $500 restitution.

“This is a defendant who clearly deserves to be prosecuted and punished,” said Washington, D.C., District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell. “The question is … two minutes inside the Capitol … how much punishment does that merit?”

Fox, 32, of Mt. Pleasant was charged in a sealed complaint on June 16 with four counts, including entering a restricted building; disorderly conduct in a restricted building; violent entry; and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a capitol building.

According to the prosecution, Fox attended former President Trump’s Stop the Steal rally that day, and then followed the crowd to the U.S. Capitol.

Fox entered the Capitol through a broken window, took a selfie inside and exited after receiving a phone call from his mother, panicked about the violence breaking out there.

Fox pleaded guilty Nov. 5 to the single misdemeanor count of parading, with the government agreeing to withdraw all other counts.

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At the sentencing Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony L. Franks asked the court to order Fox to serve one month of incarceration to be followed by probation.

In his argument, Franks said Fox engaged in preplanning to go to the Capitol for the rally, and wrote on Facebook about his wish for Trump to start a civil war.

Franks also said in his sentencing brief that Fox spread false information about the riot, including in April 2021, when he claimed that “January 6th was a walking tour. The doors were open and only agents provocateur were breaking windows at the protest of the crowd. Absolutely a lie that anything violent happened there other than a black officer murdering a white woman.”

Despite Fox’s postings on the issue, Howell questioned the government’s position in requesting incarceration.

The judge noted that in 58 Capitol riot cases in which the defendants pleaded only to parading, the government asked for less prison time.

Noting the federal mandate that requires judges to avoid unwarranted sentencing disparities, Howell said to the prosecution, “So, you explain … how I’m supposed to reconcile that.”

Howell said Fox had no weapons with him at the rally, no tactical gear, no bear spray and had no interaction with the police.

“I’m finding it difficult — what’s so aggravating about two minutes inside the Capitol that makes this case stand out?”

Franks responded that Fox had previously served probation — for a DUI more than 10 years ago — and that he then went on to commit this crime.

Further, the prosecutor said he believed incarceration would promote deterrence for other people.

“He said that he did this so he could show his family and friends what he did,” Franks said. “He also received accolades from people. They commended him. They called him a hero.”

But Howell countered that the punishment must be commensurate with the crime.

“You don’t punish people for their beliefs unless those beliefs spill over into unlawful action,” she said, adding later, “All of that speech, as disturbing as it is, was not the unlawful conduct he was charged with.”

Defense attorney Mythri Jayaraman told the court her client owns Westmoreland Movers and employs about a dozen people. He also has a fiancée and two sons, ages 3 and 6.

His actions — both in the online posts and while attending the rally — Jayaraman said, were driven in part by wanting attention. He wanted to receive kudos and accolades from his peers.

“Sadly, these accolades were for behavior that was destructive to the very fabric of our democracy,” she wrote in her sentencing memo. “Mr. Fox now sees clearly that it is that very attention from others — compounded across hundreds of people — that made the conduct of those who breached the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, particularly dangerous.”

Jayaraman told the court that Fox had the propensity to seek approval from others, and that he is now in therapy to address the root cause of that.

Howell asked Jayaraman if her client was a QAnon follower, and she said he was not.

“It was puffery. It’s awful. It’s disgusting, and it’s incredibly harmful,” she said.

Jayaraman told the judge it took Fox a while to reach that realization.

On Jan. 9, Fox wrote a six-page letter to Franks which Jayaraman attached to her court filing. In it, Fox explained his reasons for going to the Capitol, and called it “one of the most tragic days in American history.”

Fox said he would post provocative comments on Facebook with the goal of starting arguments and getting “likes.”

When the rally was scheduled on Jan. 6, he said in his letter, he thought that it was his “final chance to walk the walk, and go down to what I knew was going to be the last and final President Trump speech.”

He also referenced the increase in mail-in voting during the covid-19 pandemic and whether it would help the Democrats.

“It all led to the culmination of feelings of hopelessness and loss for anyone who was counting on a Trump reelection,” he wrote.

Fox, who is Hindu and a registered member of the Green party, said he supported Trump starting in 2015, because he appreciated his outspoken style and his unorthodox approach to politics and political power.

Fox also liked Trump’s policy proposals, he wrote.

Throughout Trump’s presidency, Fox said, he never attended any of his events, and so, he thought the Jan. 6 rally would be his last chance.

“The whole air and atmosphere of a Trump event, it seemed to me, was like a carnival or a pep rally,” he wrote.

He entered the Capitol, he continued, to have a memento of his attendance that day.

Now, more than a year later, Fox said, his actions that day “have been a deep source of pain and regret.”

“History will never see this as a day where Americans were trying to address a grievance against their government. History will say ‘this is the day so many people were tricked into committing the largest attack on American democracy,’” he wrote. “All of those people and families that came to see Trump that day and hear the ‘Great Plan’ on how to ‘Stop the Steal,’ will now cast their eyes down when they remember that day. I think everyone wishes it would have gone differently.”

In his statement to the court Tuesday, Fox said he was never looking for a civil war and that his words were “an overexaggerated statement of exasperation.”

“I don’t fit a lot of the labels … for people who support Trump,” he said. “I wasn’t going in to storm the Capitol. I wanted to see what was happening.

“I never had intentions of going and harming anybody.”

Howell told Fox during the sentencing that the people who stormed the Capitol that day were not patriotic Americans. She also said Fox did not offer an appreciation for the seriousness of the events that day or offer remorse for what the mob did.

“There is a big disconnect in the space between his letter and what he said to me today,” Howell said. “Now he can show his kids his conviction and sentencing order.”

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