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South Fayette man who participated in Capitol riot sentenced to federal prison

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Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Justice

Jorden Robert Mink, 29, of South Fayette, is shown breaking a window with a baseball bat while trying to enter the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot.

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Courtesy of Allegheny County Jail

Jorden Robert Mink

The South Fayette man who used a baseball bat to bash through a window at the U.S. Capitol and repeatedly swung a large pole to strike police officers protecting Congress during the Jan. 6 riot has been sentenced to serve more than four years in federal prison.

Jorden Robert Mink was ordered to serve 51 months in prison followed by 36 months on supervised release during the sentencing hearing Friday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington, D.C.

Mink, who has been jailed since his arrest in McKees Rocks in January 2021, pleaded guilty this past January to two federal charges of assaulting, resisting, impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon, along with theft of government property. Mink, 29, faced 51 to 63 months in prison as part of the sentencing guidelines, and federal prosecutors had asked Moss to impose the maximum penalty.

“Mink smashed open a window in the Capitol, enabling him and other rioters to enter the Capitol. Mink stole chairs from inside the Capitol and passed them out to other rioters,” federal prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum. “Mink then went to the Lower West Terrace tunnel, where he repeatedly struck officers with a pole, spat on them, and threw things at them.”

Prosecutors also noted Mink’s criminal history in Pennsylvania and a cryptic social media post on Election Day in November 2020 that alluded to violence if his preferred candidate, former president Donald Trump, did not win reelection. Mink posted a photograph showing him holding a semi-automatic rifle with an “I Voted” on it and a message playing off a quote by Abraham Lincoln.

“The ballot is stronger than the bullet. … Well, my magazines will be fully loaded just in case it’s not,” Mink wrote in the post.

Another photograph posted on social media showed him at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., three days before the Jan. 6 riot.

In asking for leniency, Mink’s attorneys cited his troubled childhood and his need to care for his child, according to public portions of the heavily redacted filing.

“Despite the pain caused by these neglectful incidents, Mr. Mink does not seek sympathy or use them as excuses,” according to the defense’s filing explaining his childhood. “Instead, he draws strength from these experiences and uses them as motivation to become the father he always wanted to have, ensuring that he can provide his child with the love, care, and support he himself never received.”

Neither Assistant U.S. Attorney Nialah Ferrer, who prosecuted the case, nor Mink’s Pittsburgh-based defense attorney, Komron Maknoon, responded to phone messages seeking comment on the sentencing.

In addition to his prison sentence, which is scheduled to end in April 2025, and the three years of supervised release, Mink was ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution to the federal government for the broken window.

More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol building, according to the Department of Justice.

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