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WASHINGTON, D.C. — A former Salt Lake City police officer was sentenced to probation after he pleaded guilty earlier this year to participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Michael Lee Hardin, a Kaysville resident, avoided jail time and was sentenced Monday to 18 months of probation, and he must pay $500 in restitution, according to online court records.
Hardin pleaded guilty in January to one misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, according to court filings. It's the same charge that three other Utahns have pleaded guilty to in connection with the riot. In response to his guilty plea, federal prosecutors dropped three other misdemeanor charges on Monday, according to an online court docket.
Court records indicate that Hardin and his stepmother-in-law, Janet Buhler, flew to Washington to attend the rallies that preceded the U.S. Capitol riot, and the two later entered the Capitol through the Senate Wing Door. The two walked south to the building's crypt, where Hardin posed for a photo near a bust of Abraham Lincoln.
The two then walked upstairs and through the Capitol Rotunda, where they saw rioters, "violently break through the East Rotunda Doors, which were being manned by U.S. Capitol Police officers," according to a statement of offense document filed after Hardin pleaded guilty earlier this year.
In a sentencing memorandum filed last Monday, one of Hardin's attorneys, Scott Williams, wrote that his client had "succumbed to the herd mentality" on Jan. 6, and that he "had fully consumed the Kool-Aid," that day. Williams asked the court to not sentence Hardin to a prison or jail term.
"A sentence without incarceration is available, and warranted in connection with the totality of the circumstances in the present case," Williams wrote in the sentencing memorandum. "Mr. Hardin has no excuse for committing the serious offense of entering and trespassing in the Capitol on January 6, 2021, especially under the circumstances as they existed at the time he entered."
Buhler also pleaded guilty in January, and she is expected to be sentenced in June. The only Utahn that has been sentenced in connection with Jan. 6 is Jacob Wiedrich, who was sentenced in January to three months of home confinement and three years of probation.
In total, eight Utahns have been federally charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
