On his fundraising site, Dykes described his actions on Jan. 6 as walking into a building and waving to a friend.
“For that horrific crime, they call me Nazi terrorist,” he writes.
Appearing before U.S. District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell, Dykes was sentenced to 57 months in prison with an additional 36 months of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay $22,000 in fines and restitution.
Trump, after retaking office in January, pardoned Dykes along with others convicted of Jan. 6-related crimes.
The arrest resulting from the assault of the Capitol, however, was not Dykes’ only run in with law enforcement.
Dykes pleaded guilty in May 2023 to intimidating counter-protestors while wielding a torch in the Unite the Right rally on Aug. 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Va., according to The Daily Progress. A circuit judge in Virginia sentenced Dykes to six months in state prison.
During that riot, a mob of men wielding burning torches and chanting racist, antisemitic slogans clashed with counter-protestors. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when a car sped into a crowd of counter-protestors, injuring more than a dozen additional people. The driver, an Ohio man, was later sentenced to life in prison.
As reported in Task & Purpose, Dykes was an active-duty Marine when he participated in the attack on the Capitol. Having joined the Marine Corps in 2017, the outlet reported that he was discharged for “other than honorable conditions” for his participation in the Unite the Right rally.
The field competing for the 1st District seat includes fellow Bluffton resident and Beaufort County Councilmember Logan Cunningham, Republican state Rep. Mark Smith of Mount Pleasant, Dorchester County Councilmember Jay Byars, Air Force veteran Alex Pelbath and former doctor Sam McCown.
