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Politics Dec 08, 2023
Alan Hostetter, former La Habra police chief. | Photo courtesy of Alan Hostetter/LinkedIn
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Former La Habra Police Department Chief Alan Hostetter, a prominent COVID-19 restrictions critic and activist, was sentenced Thursday in Washington, D.C., to more than 11 years in federal prison for his role in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Hostetter, a 59-year-old yoga instructor who used to live in San Clemente but has since moved to Poolville, Texas, was convicted in July in a nonjury bench trial before U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who ruled he was guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, according to court records.
Lamberth sentenced Hostetter to 135 months in federal prison and 36 months of supervised release.
Co-defendant Russell Taylor pleaded guilty in April and was next due in court Jan. 18. Taylor faces 51 to 87 months in prison.
Four Riverside County men — Erik Scott Warner, 47, of Menifee, Felipe Antonio “Tony” Martinez, 49, of Lake Elsinore, Derek Kinnison, 41, of Lake Elsinore, and Ronald Mele, 53, of Temecula — were convicted in November and were awaiting sentencing.
Hostetter, who was chief from 2009 through 2010 when he took disability retirement, and the defendants were accused of putting together a plan after President Joe Biden’s election to halt the certification of the Electoral College vote in Congress on Jan. 6, coordinating their efforts through Telegram, an encrypted messaging application.
According to prosecutors, the defendants discussed and planned a cross-country road trip to the Capitol and promoted events sponsored by Hostetter’s American Phoenix Project, which opposed COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and has helped push the lie that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
Federal prosecutors were seeking 151 months in federal prison plus $2,000 in restitution. The prosecutors recommended a stiffer punishment for the defendant “to reflect the gravity of Hostetter’s conspiratorial conduct, including his planning and preparations with Russell Taylor for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6th — an attack that was clearly calculated to influence and affect the conduct of the United States government and to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.”
Hostetter did not file a sentencing brief. His advisory counsel, Karren Kenney, told City News Service that she thought the sentence was “absurd and a travesty.”
Kenney argued it was a violation of the Eighth Amendment and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment..
“He got 135 months for basically being present at the Capitol, walking with the crowd, carrying a bullhorn and saying, ‘Stop the steal,'” Kenney said. “He’s clearly being punished for protected First Amendment activities. He never went inside the building, never pushed against any police line, did not destroy any property.”
Kenney added that if Hostetter had been convicted of an attempted murder in California “he would have gotten less time.”
Hostetter intends to appeal, she said.
“It’ just no fair,” she said. “I’ve gotten to know him and he’s such a genuinely nice person.”
Kenney has asked Orange County prosecutors to dismiss an Orange County case against Hostetter for resisting arrest and refusal to disperse during a protest.
“I tried to get it dismissed after his conviction but I think they wanted to wait till the sentencing came down” in the federal case, she said.
The prosecutors went through painstaking detail of Hostetter’s actions before and during the riots in a 58-page sentencing brief. They likened his case to the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, who have received the lengthiest sentences so far in the hundreds of convictions stemming from the Jan. 6 violence.
“As a leader of a conspiracy to obstruct the certification of the Electoral College vote, Hostetter has few peers,” the prosecutors said. “The defendant is in a rare class. While his conduct on Jan. 6 itself may appear at times tame when compared to some of the heinous acts of violence committed by others near him, it is his role as a leader of a conspiracy, and his months- long promotion of political violence, that make him so uniquely dangerous. In his calls for violence, and his eagerness to organize for it, he has few peers.”
Prosecutors pointed out that Hostetter drove across country to attend Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, 2021, with a car full of weapons that would be prohibited in carry-on plane baggage. The prosecutors said the defendant also wanted to be prepared for a potential armed revolution in the nation’s capital.
Taylor, on the other hand, flew to Washington.
“Hostetter talked repeatedly in advance of Jan. 6 in the language of ‘war’ and ‘revolution,'” prosecutors said. “He discussed the ‘tyrants and traitors’ and the need for ‘executions’ of his political enemies. His delusions of grandeur — to see himself as the main player in a grand conspiracy centered on Jan. 6, 2021 — further demonstrate the danger Hostetter poses to the community in the future.”
The prosecutors said Hostetter, who represented himself in the trial with a back-up attorney, was dishonest in testimony.
“Hostetter likes to wrap himself in the American flag and take on the role of freedom fighter, but there is nothing patriotic or American about calling for violence — or threatening violence, to achieve your political aims,” the prosecutors said. “That is not patriotism. That is terrorism.”
The prosecutors also faulted him for “self-indulgent court filings, where he ignored the issues relevant to the case and talked about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; the firing of Tucker Carlson; the collapse of 7 World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001; occult symbols in the ‘Wizard of Oz’; the secret society Skull and Bones; and the censoring of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.”
The prosecutors acknowledged that Hostetter’s “history and characteristics” have their pros and cons.
“For years, Hostetter was a yoga and meditation teacher,” the prosecutors said. “But he collected weapons for Jan. 6 and called for executions of politicians he disagreed with. He is a gifted and charismatic public speaker. “But he used those gifts to stoke the fires of rebellion and to call for war. He has decades of service to his community as a member of law enforcement and in service in the United States Army. But he advanced past police lines, when he knew better, and joined a riotous mob set on disrupting the peaceful transfer of power.”
The prosecutors argued that a lengthy prison sentence would serve as a deterrent.
“Hostetter’s crime was an attack on not just the Capitol, but the United States and its system of government,” the prosecutors. said. “He joined a mob and struck a blow to a central feature of the American system: the peaceful transfer of power.
“This is a defendant who rallied others to the cause of war, revolution, and threats of violence against political leaders. … A lengthy term of incarceration is necessary to reflect the seriousness of his crime and to promote respect for the law.”
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