Sentencing for the Dallas man who allegedly traveled to D.C. on Jan. 6 and posted threats towards Congress on the social media site Parler was held on Thursday, Oct.21. He was sentenced to 14-months in prison by U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan.
Troy Anthony Smocks, 58, was arrested on Jan. 15 and charged with one felony count of transmitting threats in interstate commerce. He pleaded guilty last month.
According to the court documents, federal prosecutors accused Smocks of traveling to Washington D.C. on Jan. 6 and posted threats on his Parler account, where he wrote, “Many of us will return on Jan. 19, 2021, carrying our weapons in support of our nation’s resolve, to which the world will never forget. We will come in numbers that no standing army or police agency can match.”
The court documents say that the Smocks repeated the threats over the next two days.
Per the court documents, Smocks further encouraged Parler users to “hunt these cowards down like the traitors that each of them are.”
Smocks’ attorney, John Machado, told the court that his client did not enter the Capitol grounds. The Department of Justice did not charge him offenses related to the Capitol riot.
The Department of Justice says that Smocks booked a flight to depart from the United States to a foreign country on the day he was arrested.
A sentencing memo filed by the Department of Justice said that Smocks has a lengthy criminal history with 18 prior criminal convictions from the early 1980s to 2006. His previous offenses include forgery, theft, bank fraud, and the production of fraudulent identification documents.
Smocks’ sentencing is the largest anyone in connection with the Jan. 6 assault in the U.S. Capitol has gotten so far. However, a report from WFAA says that U.S. District Judge Chuktan’s verdict did not factor in Smocks’ 2003 conviction for forgery.
Had the prior conviction been added to this current charge, the judge’s recommended sentencing guidelines would have increased from 8-14 months to 10-16 months.
Chuktan said in court that Smocks’ extensive criminal history, to her, is evidence of his inability to live a law-abiding life. She also said she had no evidence to believe that Smocks had truly accepted responsibility for his actions.
Smocks’ sentencing is to be followed by three years of supervised release. He will receive credit for the nine months he served awaiting trial from January, resulting in five months of jail time remaining.
