Jan 6. Defendant Who Opened Fired on Deputies Sentenced to Two Years

Nathan Donald Pelham, a Texas man, was sentenced on Wednesday to two years in federal prison for shooting at local law enforcement officers days before he was scheduled to surrender to the F.B.I. for charges related to illegally entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

On April 12, an F.B.I. special agent called Mr. Pelham to tell him that there was a federal misdemeanor warrant for his arrest and that he needed to surrender on April 17, according to the criminal complaint. Mr. Pelham agreed to do so.

But later that day, Mr. Pelham’s father asked local police to check on his son because he had been threatening to kill himself and had a gun, according to the criminal complaint. When police arrived at Mr. Pelham’s home, it was dark and police soon heard a series of gunshots from inside the home.

“The bullet from this gunshot came in so close proximity to myself that I could hear the distinct whistling sound as the bullet traveled by me and then strike a metal object to my right side,” one of the responding officers recalled, according to the criminal complaint.

Later in the evening, prosecutors said Mr. Pelham walked out onto his porch and fired shots at the deputies. The officers ordered him to put down his weapon, but he went inside, returned, and opened fire again. None of the deputies were hit.

Mr. Pelham was arrested and charged in April with being a felon in possession of a firearm. He pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, according to a court record filed on the case docket Wednesday.

Ed Kinkeade, the U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, recommended that Mr. Pelham serve his sentence in Forrest City, Ark., and that he be allowed to participate in a residential drug abuse program.

In addition to the firearm charge, Mr. Pelham was also charged in April with four misdemeanors for illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, through a door on the Senate side of the building, where he remained for more than seven minutes. Mr. Pelham wore a pair of goggles, a neck gaiter and a baseball hat with a logo associated with the Proud Boys, the far-right group, according to court papers.

Mr. Pelham pleaded guilty to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, according to a September judgment filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He served his time for that crime from the date of his arrest, April 14, to the sentencing date, Sept. 13.

More than 1,110 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack. Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the group, received the harshest punishment: 22 years in prison for the role he played in organizing his followers to attack the building to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power.

Ethan Nordean, a group commander of the Proud Boys, was sentenced to 18 years. Dominic Pezzola, the man who smashed a window with a riot shield and set off the breach of the building, was sentenced to 10 years. In May, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, another far-right group, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the role he played in the attack.