After being misled on social media by those who invented the false “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, in which a pizza restaurant in Washington D.C. was accused of harboring an alleged child-sex-trafficking ring, the North Carolina man who commandeered the pizza restaurant Comet Ping Pong last December at gunpoint was sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday.
Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, had apologized to his victims and residents of Washington D.C., asking for an 18-month sentence, while prosecutors wanted to send a message to vigilantes seeking retribution by asking for a 4½ -year prison term. Welch, who has two young daughters, had previously said he had become agitated by reports and videos he read and saw online promulgating the “Pizzagate” sex ring.
Assistant U.S. attorney Demian S. Ahn held up the AR-15 Welch had brandished before he fired one shot, telling the judge it had been part of an “armed invasion” and part of a campaign of “vicious harassment and unfounded rumors.” James Alefantis, the owner of Comet Ping Pong, said the “physical terror” left by Welch and the rumors “left lasting damage on the people I love,” adding “one day in a more truthful time we will remember this day as an aberration” when “lies were seen as real and our social fabric had frayed.”
U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson told Welch, “I hope you understand and see how much people have suffered because of what you did. I am truly sorry you find yourself in the position you are in, because you do seem like a nice person who on your own mind was trying to do the right thing. But that does not excuse reckless conduct and the real damage that it caused.”
The Pizzagate conspiracy was promoted on Reddit and 4Chan, and also by Alex Jones of Infowars, who stated only days before Welch’s attack, “Let’s go ahead and go to the report, Pizzagate Is Real. The question is: How real is it? What is it? Something’s going on. Something’s being covered up. It needs to be investigated. To just call it fake news — these are real WikiLeaks. This is real stuff going on. … Go investigate it for yourself. … Go to the report, Pizzagate Is Real. … Something’s going on. Something’s being covered up. It needs to be investigated.”
Jones apologized four months later, saying neither Comet Ping-Pong nor Alefantis had anything to do with human trafficking. That statement followed Alefantis’ attorneys requesting a retraction.
As The Washington Post reported, Welch had binge-watched YouTube videos about the alleged child-trafficking ring on December 1, and texted prior to the attack, “Raiding a pedo ring, possibly sacrificing [sic] the lives of a few for the lives of many,” and in another text wrote, “Standing up against a corrupt system that kidnaps, tortures and rapes babies and children in our own back yard.”
The Post continued:
Welch acknowledged walking into the restaurant carrying a fully loaded, six-shot .38-caliber Colt revolver on his hip, and holding the 9mm AR-15 Colt rifle with about 29 rounds of ammunition across his chest, with his hands on the pistol-style grip and around the barrel. After a panicky evacuation by workers and customers, including children, Welch fired the rifle multiple times at a locked closet door, striking computer equipment inside, court documents said. He also pointed the rifle toward an unwitting employee retrieving pizza dough from a nearby business who entered the back of the restaurant, then immediately turned and ran for his life, according to the government’s evidence signed off by Welch.