- The son of Capitol rioter Guy Reffitt said his father was used as a "puppet" on January 6, 2021.
- Guy Reffitt's daughter Peyton had earlier called for Donald Trump to receive "life in prison."
Before Guy Reffitt led a pro-Trump mob up the stairs to the Capitol on January 6, 2021, "polarizing differences" emerged within his family over how to view him as he fell deeper into a far-right, antigovernment militia.
"It's been really hard over the past couple of years," Reffitt's son, Jackson Reffitt, said in a CNN interview. "It feels like we're each pulling on each string one way."
But after seeing their father sentenced to more than seven years in prison Monday — the longest term behind bars ordered to date in a January 6 case — his children were united in at least one view: former President Donald Trump should face even stiffer consequences.
"My dad was used as a puppet, and thousands of families have been. And whether you deny or agree with that, it's just ... it's facts at this point," Jackson Reffitt said in an interview with CNN's Brianna Keilar.
Referring to Trump, he added, "It is disgusting to see that someone with ... money and social power can just get away with manipulating thousands of people just for whatever reason and have no outcome."
Judge Dabney Friedrich sentenced Guy Reffitt to more than seven years — or 87 months — in prison after a jury convicted him in March on five charges stemming from the January 6 insurrection, including obstruction of an official proceeding and bringing a firearm to restricted Capitol grounds. The jury also found Reffitt guilty of threatening his own children to keep them from reporting him to law enforcement.
At the March trial, Jackson Reffitt took the stand and recalled how he reported his father to law enforcement weeks before January 6 — on Christmas Eve in 2020 — after growing alarmed about his incendiary rhetoric and plans to do "something big." Jackson Reffitt, who was 19 when he took the stand, testified that he later secretly recorded his father after he returned home to Texas from Washington, DC, and exuberantly recounted his experience leading a pro-Trump up the stairs to the Capitol, where he wore tactical gear and faced off with police.
But as federal agents tracked down suspected participants in the Capitol attack, Guy Reffitt grew alarmed and told his children they would be traitors if they turned him into law enforcement — and that "traitors get shot."
At Reffitt's sentencing Monday, a prosecutor read a letter from Jackson Reffitt advocating for his father to receive mental health treatment and benefit from "all the safety nets" available in the prison system. In remarks to the judge, Guy Reffitt's daughter also called attention to her father's mental health issues and — without naming Trump — appeared to blame the events of January 6 on the former president.
"My father's name wasn't on the flags that everyone was carrying that day," said Reffitt's daughter Peyton. "It was another man's name."
Referring to her father, she added: "He wasn't the leader."
Outside the courthouse after her father's sentencing, Peyton Reffitt gave a blunter assessment.
"Trump deserves life in prison if my father is in prison for this long," she said.