Patrick Montgomery, inset and background, wrestled with an officer during the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (U.S. Attorney’s Office).
A Jan. 6 rioter and hunting guide from Colorado is going to prison after admitting to wrestling an officer to the ground for his baton and kicking the officer in the chest with his boot during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Patrick Montgomery, 51, was sentenced Thursday to 37 months — or more than three years — in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release. He was convicted of assaulting officers and obstruction of an official proceeding, the latter charge dismissed following the Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer v. United States, prosecutors said.
Montgomery’s attorney, Roger Roots, reacted to his client’s sentence, telling The Colorado Sun in an email that he thought his client was “seriously over-sentenced.”
“The DOJ has sought the harshest sentences for political rioting in American history for Jan. 6 defendants,” Roots said. “Mr. Montgomery was sentenced to more than three years in prison for pulling on an officer’s baton.”
In his sentencing memo, arguing for one year of probation, no restitution, and no fine, Roots said Montgomery’s assault occurred during moments of crowd chaos when lines of police were in various pushing matches with demonstrators.
Montgomery grabbed an officer’s “swinging baton” after the officer had been “thrashing the baton amidst the crowd,” the document said. At the time Montgomery grabbed the baton, at least two other demonstrators had already grabbed at the baton.
“Under these conditions, Montgomery’s conduct can be seen as limited self defense or defense of others,” Roots wrote.
Montgomery was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss, a Barack Obama appointee.
In their sentencing memo recommending 41 months imprisonment, prosecutors said Montgomery’s conduct that day was aggressive and highly confrontational.
“He was among the rioters who forced the Senate to evacuate its chamber and suspend its Constitutional duty to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election,” the memo said. “Montgomery contributed to the mob violence by assaulting a police officer, Officer D.H., because the officer was doing his job. Montgomery confronted police officers numerous times during his illegal journey through the Capitol, making it more difficult for police to clear and secure the Capitol.”
Court documents said Montgomery grabbed the officer’s baton as the officer held onto the baton. The two fell to the ground as they wrestled over the baton. During the scuffle, Montgomery kicked the police officer in the chest. Afterward, he went up the Upper West Terrace stairs with the masses and entered the building at 2:35 p.m. Inside, on the second floor near the Senate Floor, he confronted an officer. Then, at one point, before exiting the building at 2:53 p.m., Montgomery yelled: “You gotta stop doing your job sometime and start being American. You gotta quit doing your job and be an American!”
He was arrested on Jan. 17, 2021.
He had posted a photo on his Facebook page of the Senate Chamber, bragging in the caption, “We stormed the Senate … opened those Chamber door for Transparency!” court documents said. He apparently had an email exchange he had with a tipster who saw the photo, which was included in prosecutors’ filings.
“You have been reported to the police in DC as well as the FBI,” the tipster wrote.
“I’m not a scared cat or running from anything … Im [sic] so deeply covered by the best Federal Defense lawyers in the country in case you chicken s— cry boys don’t want it takes to defend our freedom from these corrupt politicians,” Montgomery replied, adding, “I didn’t storm the castle violently. My group was let in peacefully by the police we were talking to with respect. We came a[n]d left peacefully before the anarchist and Antifa showed up breaking s— and being hoodlums.”
Months after Montgomery’s arrest, as Law&Crime reported, a federal judge ordered that he be held under house arrest for violating the provision of his pretrial release requiring that he not possess any illegal firearms. The move came after prosecutors discovered that he used a .357 magnum to kill a massive mountain lion.
Court documents contained a photograph of a beaming Montgomery, holding up the carcass of a 170-pound mountain lion that he shot on March 31, 2021. The photo was reported by officers with Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), which probed the incident and discovered that Montgomery was convicted of robbing several stores in 1996 in New Mexico, barring him from possessing a firearm. That conviction also ordered him to “not violate federal, state, or local law while on release” and prohibited him from committing “any Federal or State crimes,” court documents said.
Patrick Montgomery holding up a dead mountain lion (Colorado Parks and Wildlife).
According to prosecutors, Montgomery did just that a few weeks after the Capitol siege when “he and his dogs pursued the bobcat for approximately 11 miles and his dogs killed the bobcat, which violates local law.” The report from CPW said that Montgomery had knocked the bobcat out of a tree with a slingshot before letting his dogs kill the animal, both of which are illegal in the state of Colorado.
The CPW report further stated that Montgomery provided “conflicting stories” when questioned about the bobcat’s death before threatening to “press charges against the State of Colorado for taking his income.”
“Given that Montgomery has repeatedly and flagrantly violated both state and federal law while on pre-trial release in this case — including by possessing and using a firearm — the Government respectfully requests that the Court revoke his release pending trial,” prosecutors wrote. “Montgomery has no respect for the Court’s orders, just like he had no respect for law enforcement at the Capitol on January 6. Instead of peacefully protesting, he tried to grab a Metropolitan Police Department officer’s baton, wrestled him to the ground for it, and then kicked the officer in the chest while wearing a boot. After the officer regained control of his baton, Montgomery stood up, and held up his two middle fingers at the officer.”
Montgomery, who is originally from Albuquerque and moved to Colorado in 2001, owns a hunting guide business called Pmonte Outdoors. His sentencing memo elaborates on his love for hunting and his yearslong sobriety.
“Montgomery’s main passion in life besides family has been raising and training hound dogs,” the memo said. “That process played a large role in helping him achieve sobriety for over 7 years now as he found it to be therapeutic. Raising the dogs gave him a lot of time for reflecting on life and his relationship with God while outside in the mountains of Colorado.”
Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.
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