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WASHINGTON (CN) — A Missouri man who was a fixture at St. Louis Cardinal games known for his red face paint and all red outfits was sentenced to 10 months in prison on Thursday for clashing with police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Rally Runner, 44, who legally changed his name from Daniel Donnelly Jr. in 2017, traveled from his home in Missouri to Washington to attend former President Donald Trump’s Stop the Steal rally, wearing red face paint, a red jacket and a red “Keep America Great” hat.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb, a Joe Biden appointee, declined to impose the Justice Department’s recommended 27-month sentence, finding that Runner’s conduct put him squarely in the middle between rioters who were more violent and those who were merely disruptive.
“I don’t see Runner as a violent, and certainly not an evil, person,” Cobb said before passing down the sentence.
The judge did levy a $1,000 fine in addition to the standard $2,000 in restitution that all Jan. 6 defendants have been ordered to pay for the damages inflicted on the Capitol.
Runner pleaded guilty to civil disorder, a felony, in March 2024 to dismiss four other charges of entering restricted grounds, disorderly conduct on restricted grounds, disorderly conduct in the Capitol and impeding passage through the Capitol.
He made a brief statement before receiving his sentence, apologizing for his actions and promising to use his time in prison to better himself.
Runner marched with the crowd to the Capitol, where he eventually made his way toward the tunnel at the Lower West Terrace, the site of the worst violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, where rioters clashed with police for hours.
Once there, he made his way near the front of the mob outside the tunnel and helped pass a ladder toward the police line. He then obtained a riot shield from another rioter, which he used to push officers back.
Runner held the shield just inside the threshold of the tunnel, which allowed rioters behind him to use pepper spray against the police line, according to the Justice Department in his sentencing memorandum.
After a brief pause in the violence, Runner created a shield wall with other rioters, acting as a phalanx to inch further into the tunnel. Runner, at the front of the crowd, was able to push officers back against a set of glass doors leading into the Capitol building, before reinforcements arrived and pushed the mob back out of the tunnel.
After leaving the Capitol grounds, Runner posted a 29-minute video to Facebook, where he boasted about his use of the stolen riot shield and how the mob appeared to follow his lead to push into the tunnel.
“I got further than anyone, I literally got further than anyone,” Runner said in the video. “I helped us get that far.”
Runner’s defense attorney, Nat Rosenblum of firm Rosenblum Schwartz, urged Cobb to show his client mercy and only sentence him to a period of probation.
He explained that Runner had certain personality traits that made him “susceptible to brainwashing,” an apparent reference to his belief in the false claims Trump and his conservative allies made about election fraud in 2020 that culminated in the Capitol riot.
Rosenblum also pushed for probation over potential safety concerns Runner may face after being highlighted in a December 2021 segment of Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show as a possible “government plant” meant to provoke Trump supporters to violence.
The debunked conspiracy theory has been spread widely in the wake of the Capitol riot by conservatives as a way to shift blame to the government or antifa and has led certain rioters to receive death threats from other Trump supporters.
In another rioter’s case, Ray Epps, his association with the theory even reached Trump, who promoted claims that Epps’ wife worked for a division of Dominion Voting, the voting company conservatives falsely claimed engaged in voter fraud.
Rosenblum also said that for much of Runner’s life, he had been in search of a “miracle” to save him from an “uninspiring life.”
That miracle came while he was incarcerated in 2010 for a burglary, theft and witness tampering conviction, where he took on the personality of Rally Runner, which he then took great pride in following his release.
Rosenblum explained how Runner used his persona both during games — running around the stadium to rally the players — and outside, helping the homeless members of the community.
But that obsession soon turned political during Trump’s presidency, the Covid-19 pandemic and on Jan. 6.
“Rally wanted to reenact his rally run, not for the Cardinals this time, but for Trump,” Rosenblum said.
In the 43 months since the Capitol riot, more than 1,488 individuals have been arrested in connection to Jan. 6, and more than 562 defendants having been ordered to periods of incarceration.
Around 547 defendants have been charged with assaulting officers. Of those, 163 have been charged with using a dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury.
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