Cop-gassing MAGA rioter gets 'sweetheart' deal for a surprising reason

A January 6 rioter who assaulted police officers at the U.S. Capitol with chemical spray and used a megaphone to command fellow rioters to seize officers' guns received a reduced sentence, reported NBC News — for a surprising reason.

"The rioter, Samuel Lazar, has assisted prosecutors with cases against other Capitol rioters, as well as a fellow federal criminal defendant charged in a murder case, the court records show," reported Ryan J. Reilly. "Lazar, as NBC News first reported, was sentenced at a closed proceeding in March. After having pleaded guilty to assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers with a dangerous weapon, he was sentenced to 2½ years, or 30 months, in prison. Lazar was arrested in July 2021 and ordered detained until trial; Bureau of Prisons records showed he was released from custody this September."

Reports earlier this year indicated that he had made a secret arrangement with the Justice Department.

"Before his arrest and while his photo was featured on the FBI’s Capitol Violence website, Lazar attended a political event featuring Rudy Giuliani and was repeatedly photographed with Doug Mastriano, a far-right Pennsylvania Republican who ran unsuccessfully for governor last year and helped spread the lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election," said the report. Mastriano was never charged in connection with January 6, but he was revealed to have been on the scene during the attack.

One legal onlooker said the agreement was a "sweetheart" deal.

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More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the January 6 attack, making it the largest criminal investigation of its kind in the history of the United States.

Most of those people were charged with misdemeanors like unlawful picketing, trespassing, and disorderly conduct, but a number were also charged with assaulting police, and some leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. Trump himself has been charged in multiple cases relating to the alleged plot to overturn the 2020 election, of which the January 6 attack was a part.