A federal judge handed a two-year prison sentence Thursday to a Manteno man who admitted shoving a police officer and throwing a metal travel mug at a police line during the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot but has since allegedly quibbled with the feds about his actions.
Quinn Keen, 36, also faces trial next month for driving under the influence, his attorney told U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly in Washington, D.C. Still, the attorney acknowledged that Keen’s actions on Jan. 6 amount to “the most significant crime Mr. Keen has committed.”
He is one of nearly 50 known Illinois residents to face federal criminal charges tied to the Capitol riot.
His attorney told the judge that Keen had been influenced by an article on the Infowars website.
Keen pleaded guilty in February to assaulting, resisting or impeding officers. He admitted that he arrived at the Capitol the day of the riot with other protesters and entered a restricted area by 1:14 p.m. He joined thousands of others on the lower west terrace, where U.S. Capitol and Metropolitan police had formed a line behind a bicycle-rack barricade.
Keen confronted officers on the line, threw the contents of a water bottle at them and then threw the bottle itself, according to court documents. Meanwhile, other rioters pulled a bike rack from the police line and tossed it to the ground. When an officer bent over to pick it up, Keen shoved the officer backward with both hands, records show.
Keen then backed away but, one minute later, he threw a metal travel mug at the officers, according to the records. It hit a plexiglass riot shield and fell to the ground.
Afterward, Keen entered the Capitol at 2:38 p.m., made his way into the Rotunda and smoked a joint, records show. He left once officers began to push the crowd out. In all, he spent 37 minutes inside the building.
However, prosecutors say Keen sat for an interview with the FBI earlier this month and allegedly insisted that he did not mean to throw the metal mug at officers. He said he instead tried to throw it away from people to “get the mug out of everyone’s way.”
Keen also allegedly told the FBI he didn’t know he wasn’t allowed to enter the Capitol that day, and that he went inside to document events like a “journalist.”
“Keen not only expressed no remorse for his actions on that day, but instead expressly gave an account of his actions on Jan. 6 which minimized his criminal conduct and which disputed crucial facts which he had previously admitted under oath before the court,” prosecutors said.
