A member of the National Guard who stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6 was sentenced to probation and fined for his involvement in the storming. The service member also remains in the Wisconsin National Guard.
First reported by Military.com, court records revealed that Pfc. Abram Markofski was given two years of probation and fined $1,500 for violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Federal prosecutors had requested a two-week prison sentence.
Markofski, who pleaded guilty to one charge as part of a plea agreement, serves in Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry Regiment, which is a National Guard unit out of River Falls, Wisconsin.
Wisconsin National Guard spokesperson Maj. Gretel Weiskopf told Military.com that “there has not been a change” to Markofski’s status in the Guard.
When asked if Markofski was involved in the mission to protect the Capitol following the storming, Maj. Weiskopf said she could not provide additional details due to privacy regulations.
“Any details into his status within the Wisconsin National Guard will not be disclosed to protect his privacy,” Weiskopf told Military.com in an email.
Prior to his sentencing, Markofski’s colleagues and leaders within the Guard submitted statements to the court vouching for his character. They asked the court to impose a more lenient sentence so that Markofski could continue his service.
“In my professional opinion as one of his mentors, and as a witness of PFC Markofski’s moral character, I truly believe that he is an asset to the United States Army,” 2nd Lt. Joel Stevenson, Markofski’s platoon leader, said in one of the statements.
The events on Jan. 6 continue to be a tense issue on Capitol Hill. Earlier this month, a former official from the D.C. National Guard and high-level military lawyer accused two top Army leaders of being “absolute liars” in their testimony to Congress over the Capitol storming.
Matthews called Gen. Charles Flynn and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt “absolute and unmitigated liars” for how they described the events of Jan. 6, accusing the pair of fabricating their stories as part of a secret effort to reframe the military’s response to the riot.
Matthews said that both Flynn and Piatt lied to Congress about how they responded to pleas that the Guard be rapidly deployed. He also alleged that the Pentagon inspector generals’ report on Army leadership related to the storming of the Capitol was “replete with factual inaccuracies” and that the Army had generated its own document about the riot that’s “worthy of the best Stalinist or North Korea propagandist.”
