Jan. 6 rioter who punched officer and stole his shield sentenced to almost 3 years

A New York state man who attacked a police officer in the Jan. 6 riot and stole his shield was sentenced to almost three years in prison Friday, federal prosecutors said.

One of the punches that Jonathan Munafo, 36, swung “appears to have caused the officer’s head to snap back,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington said in a statement.

Munafo was sentenced to 33 months in prison, or two years and nine months.

Munafo, of Albany, also stole the officer’s shield as the mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump attacked police and entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

He pleaded guilty in April to two federal felony charges — assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and civil disorder. In addition to attacking the officer, he used a flag to try to smash a window at the Capitol.

Munafo has been in custody for 29 months already since he turned himself in and was arrested in April 2021, his defense attorney wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

He was also already sentenced to two years in prison in a Michigan case in which he repeatedly called an emergency dispatch center on Jan. 5, 2021, identifying himself as “Yankee Patriot” and demanding to speak to a Calhoun County sheriff’s official, the federal prosecutor’s office there said. He made 143 calls and at one point said “I’m gonna cut your throat.”

Munafo’s federal public defender in the Jan. 6 case did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday night.

Munafo has a history of mental illness and mental health interventions, his attorney wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

He was in months of isolation before Jan. 6, 2021, which affected his metal wellbeing, his attorney wrote.

Prosecutors, who argued for a 37-month sentence, argued that when Munafo stole the officer’s shield he left the officer vulnerable to the attacks of others.