Mark Ponder, a 56-year-old Washington resident, said he was “caught” by the chaos that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021, and “didn’t want any of this to happen.” “I wasn’t thinking that day,” Ponder told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, pleading for mercy before she sentenced him to five years and three months in prison. That was three months longer than the prison sentence prosecutors were seeking. And it’s the same sentence Chutkan gave Robert Palmer, a Florida man who also pleaded guilty to assaulting police on Capitol Hill. More than 200 other Capitol riot defendants have been convicted so far. No one received a longer prison sentence than Ponder or Palmer. Chutkan said Ponder “led the charge” against police officers trying to stop the mob that disrupted Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory. “This is not ‘caught,’ Mr. Ponder,” he said. “He intended to attack and injure police officers. This was not a protest.” Chutkan has consistently taken a hard line in punishing Capitol troublemakers. She has imposed prison terms on all 13 riot defendants before her, meeting or exceeding the Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation in each case, according to an Associated Press review of court records. Prosecutors had recommended a five-year prison sentence for Ponder, who has been incarcerated since his arrest in March 2021. In April, Ponder pleaded guilty to an assault charge that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Federal sentencing guidelines called for a prison term ranging from nearly five years to just under six years, but Chutkan was not bound by those recommendations. More than 100 police officers were injured during the riots. Defense attorney Joseph Conte said Ponder was “stirred into the madness that was Jan. 6.” Conte asked for a proposal below the guidelines. Ponder swung a pole at a Capitol Police officer on the Capitol’s West Square, smashing it into the officer’s shield. After retreating into the crowd, Ponder grabbed a sturdier pole with red, white, and blue stripes. He used it to attack two other officers, hitting one of them in the left shoulder, before the officers arrested and handcuffed him. Outnumbered officers released Ponder because they could not get a police vehicle to transport him. He was told to leave the Capitol, but Ponder stayed and joined a mob of rioters clashing with police in a tunnel. After his arrest, Ponder told FBI agents that he usually supports the police, but he viewed the officers as “part of the problem” that day. “At some point, the way this country is going, you’re going to have to pick a side,” he said, according to prosecutors. Ponder attended the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally to hear then-President Donald Trump speak and to “peacefully protest the election results and the lack of attention to alleged election irregularities,” Conte wrote in a filing with court. “He did so with no intention of doing anything other than adding his voice to the vociferous protests about the injustice he perceived to have occurred in the election,” the lawyer added. “Unfortunately, he was caught up in the chaotic atmosphere of the crowd and mistakenly perceived that the police were standing in the way of the crowd’s desire to protest the election results.” Ponder has a substantial criminal record spanning three decades, including a 2008 conviction for bank robbery, according to prosecutors. More than 840 people have been charged with federal crimes for their behavior on Capitol Hill on January 6. More than 350 riot defendants pleaded guilty or were convicted by a jury or judge after trials. More than 220 of them have been convicted, including about 100 who received prison terms. Ponder is the 15th person to be sentenced to more than a year in prison.
