Jan. 6 defendant sprayed ‘Wasp & Hornet Killer’ at cops

William Lewis is seen spraying a wasp repellent at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. Attorney’s Office)

An Army veteran from Illinois who unloaded a can of “No Pest Wasp & Hornet Killer” while facing off with police guarding the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riots has learned his fate.

William Lewis, 58, was sentenced Friday to 37 months in prison — or more than three years — by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, a Barack Obama appointee. Lewis previously pleaded guilty to a felony charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers, the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release.

In a sentencing memo asking for 57 months — or nearly five years of incarceration, prosecutors said Lewis was a ready, willing, and determined participant in the chaos that day. The government said Lewis made his way to the defensive police line of officers struggling to prevent the mob from advancing to the Capitol building.

They added that he exacerbated the plight of the officers by spraying them four times with wasp and hornet repellent and that wasn’t the end of it.

“When police lines collapsed, he ascended to the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol building,” prosecutors wrote. “He helped further the illegal objectives of the mob by attacking a large, composite window to the right of the Lower West Terrace tunnel. Wearing protective gloves and a backpack garnished with a small American flag, he viciously and repeatedly struck four panes of the window with a stolen police baton until he had shattered 3 of them.”