Two active-duty Camp Pendleton Marines received probation and community service for their roles in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. As reported by the Times of San Diego, Micah Coomer was sentenced last Tuesday to four years of probation and 279 hours of community service, with each hour representing every Marine killed or wounded in the Civil War.
Prosecutors have charged over 1,100 individuals with crimes in connection to the Capitol breach, including more than 100 military veterans and nearly a dozen active-duty military members, as the San Diego Union-Tribune highlighted. Marine Sgt. Dodge Hellonen, Coomer's co-defendant, was also sentenced to the same probation and community service terms, while Joshua Abate was sentenced on Wednesday. Both pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.
In a sentencing memorandum, prosecutors wrote, "While defendants' military service is laudable, it renders their conduct on Jan. 6 all the more troubling." The document further states that Coomer and his co-defendants "joined with other rioters in provocative chants, which further riled up the mob."
The Marine Corps is likely to give Coomer and Hellonen a less-than-honorable discharge. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Coomer told his superiors at Camp Pendleton during an administrative hearing that he supported former President Donald Trump because he considered him "pro-military" and there for the "little guy."
