A federal judge on Monday asked prosecutors why Capitol riot defendants are only being asked to pay up to $1.5 million in restitution while American taxpayers are stuck with covering hundreds of millions of dollars more in costs.
Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell made her argument while questioning the Justice Department’s plea hearing for a man from Colorado Springs, Colo., who admitted to misdemeanor picketing at the U.S. Capitol, saying that the department was too lenient with its plea deals, according to The Washington Post.
Howell reportedly pushed back on the department, asking why it only sought $2,000 in each felony case and $500 in each misdemeanor case.
“I’m accustomed to the government being fairly aggressive in terms of fraud when there have been damages that accrue from a criminal act for the restitution amount,” Howell said, according to the Post. “Where we have Congress acting, appropriating all this money due directly to the events of January 6th, I have found the damage amount of less than $1.5 million — when all of us American taxpayers are about to foot the bill for close to half a billion dollars — a little bit surprising.”
Prosecutors provided details in June on the cost of damage done during the riot at the Capitol, estimating that it totaled “approximately $1,495,326.55,” according to court documents obtained by the Post.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Clayton Henry O’Connor reportedly told Howell that the government would provide an explanation for how it arrived at a total for the damage and restitution estimate before October.
According to a spokesperson for the Architect of the Capitol, the agency “gave damage assessments to the Justice Department, which calculated the per-case penalty, and separate assessments to House and Senate appropriators for wider security costs,” Axios reported.
A security bill passed by Congress on July 29 allotted nearly $2.1 billion to cover the damage caused on Jan. 6. The bill included a $521 million repayment to the National Guard, a $70 million reimbursement to the Capitol Police and $300 million for improvements in Capitol security, the Post noted.
The attack on the Capitol resulted in the deaths of five people. About 140 police officers were assaulted.