John Sullivan, aka JaydenX, a 29-year-old from Utah, was sentenced on Friday for his role in instigating the January 6 Capitol riot. He’s been in custody since his conviction in 2023 on five felony and two misdemeanor charges for obstructing the joint session of Congress, civil disorder, and carrying a knife into the U.S. Capitol.
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The government sought a seven-year prison sentence, one of the longer terms handed down to January 6 defendants. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth sentenced Sullivan to 72 months, or six years, in prison, and three years of supervised release. Sullivan will also pay $2,0000 in restitution, and Sullivan will lose approximately $90,000 in profits he made selling footage of the riot.
Sullivan, who pretended to support Trump while being a leftist activist with ties to Antifa and BLM, made statements revealing his true intentions, saying, “I brought my megaphone to instigate s***” and to “make those Trump supporters f*** s*** up.” The government argued that Sullivan went to the Capitol with the “goal of inciting the crowd,” and to “foment anarchy.”
During the riot, Sullivan carried a retractable knife with a nearly 4-inch blade and offered it to other demonstrators, saying,
Hey guys, I have a knife. I have a knife. Let me up.
He also told law enforcement officers to stand down, saying to them, “You are putting yourself in harm’s way” and “The people have spoken.”
Statements like these were made by Sullivan immediately proceeded the fatal shooting of military veteran Ashli Babbitt, as RedState previously reported:
Among the instances where Sullivan told officers to stand down or to move was outside of the Speaker’s Lobby in the moments leading up to the fatal shooting of Babbitt. He told a law enforcement officer:
We want you to go home. I’m recording and there’s so many people and they’re going to push their way up here. Bro, I’ve seen people out there get hurt. I don’t want to see you get hurt.
It is unclear why the officers moved, but they did retreat from their position in front of the doors as Sullivan yelled at them, “I want you to go home!” Sullivan continues yelling and instructing the crowd, saying, “Go! Go! Get this s***!” He films as others in the crowd try to break out the glass in the entryway door windows before Babbit is fatally shot in the left shoulder as she tries to enter through the window opening.
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Sullivan, who sold the footage of Babbitt’s killing to media outlets, rebranded himself as a journalist after the riot, and claimed freedom of the press to avoid prosecution and later as a defense during his trial. Prosecutors found no evidence of his journalistic credentials or affiliations.
On Friday, Judge Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee overseeing many January 6 cases, repeatedly rebuked Sullivan for his attempts to adopt the “protective veneer of a journalist” to hide his true identity, as a “chaos agent.”
Judge Lamberth said:
He wanted to exploit others to sow chaos and undermine our system of government.
During sentencing, the judge noted that Sullivan’s case is unlike other Capitol riot defendants because he didn’t come to support Trump but for his own personal gain and anti-government motives.
Judge Lamberth said that, “[f]or Mr. Sullivan, violence was an end in and of itself.”
While Sullivan has been in protective custody away from the general population in D.C.’s jail since his conviction last November, his attorney Steven Kiersh, requested that the judge recommend Sullivan be housed in a low-security facility as close to Utah as possible.
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