US Capitol rioter who ‘posed for selfies’ in Senate heads to jail

Paul Allard Hodgkins, who breached the US Senate chamber carrying a Trump flag, receives an eight-month prison term.

The US Capitol rioter who breached the US Senate chamber on January 6 carrying a Trump campaign flag and posed for selfies, was sentenced Monday to eight months behind bars, the first prison sentence in the Capitol insurrection. Paul Allard Hodgkins, 38, pleaded guilty on June 2 to obstruction of an official proceeding, while Congress was in the process of formally certifying Joe Biden’s election last November as US president when supporters of former President Donald Trump rampaged through the building. At a sentencing hearing in Washington, DC, on Monday, prosecutor Mona Sedky told US District Judge Randolph Moss that Hodgkins, a resident of Tampa, Florida, donned goggles before entering the Senate chamber during the riot and “proudly posed for selfies” which he texted to friends.