Tamarac resident Mason Courson participated in the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
This article was previously published and is being featured as one of many of our top stories for 2023.
By Kevin Deutsch
A Tamarac man who participated in the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Friday to nearly five years in prison, authorities said.
Mason Joel Courson, 27, pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Nov 30, 2022, to a felony charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding a law enforcement officer with a dangerous weapon, according to the Justice Department.
In addition to a 57-month prison term, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras sentenced Courson to 36 months of supervised release and restitution of $2,000, authorities said.
According to court documents, on Jan 6, 2021, Courson was part of the mob that confronted law enforcement officers at the Archway and tunnel areas leading into the U.S. Capitol building from the lower west terrace.
By about 4:20 p.m., authorities said that hundreds of rioters were gathered there, some of whom were throwing and swinging various objects at a group of law enforcement officers.
During the violence, at around 4:27 p.m., another rioter, Jack Wade Whitton, climbed over a railing and began striking an officer with a crutch and kicking him, according to federal prosecutors. Whitton then grabbed the officer and, along with Logan Barnhart and another rioter, dragged the officer down the steps and into the crowd, prosecutors said.
Courson, who was at the bottom of the steps, beat the officer with a police baton, as other rioters struck him with other objects, prosecutors said. The officer sustained physical injuries, including bruising and abrasions.
After the attack, authorities said Courson kept the baton as a possible “trophy,” records show.
Courson was among a group of nine defendants named in a single indictment. Justin Jersey, Jack Wade Whitton, Logan James Barnhart, and Peter Francis Stager have all previously pleaded guilty.
Prosecutors said their actions and hundreds of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election.
Mason Joel Courson [GiveSendGo]
Prosecutors said Courson participated in one of the most violent attacks on police during the failed attempt to stop the certification of Joe Biden as the election winner.
Before the Jan 6 attack, Courson had a criminal history that included several arrests between 2013 and 2018, including busts for battery, grand theft, and resisting arrest without violence.
In the 29 months since Jan 6, 2021, more than 1,000 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the Capitol, including about 350 people charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The investigation remains ongoing.
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