Notorious racist internet troll and Jan. 6 riot participant “Baked Alaska” is officially headed to prison—and not just for his involvement in the riot.
Baked Alaska, whose real name is Anthime Gionet, was arrested shortly after the riot. The feds’ case was helped by Gionet himself, who livestreamed his crimes in the Capitol on the internet.
“Occupy the Capitol, let’s go!” Gionet declared at one point during the riot. “We ain’t leaving this bitch!”
But Gionet is also facing charges for macing a security guard in an unrelated incident in Scottsdale, Arizona, in late 2020. The attack came as the security guard tried to escort Gionet and his friends, who were livestreaming their boorish behavior to their online audiences, out of a bar.
Gionet was initially sentenced to 30 days in jail on the mace charges back in January, but the sentence was on hold pending his appeal. On Friday, though, a downbeat Gionet broke the news to his fans: his appeal had been rejected, and he would be headed to jail on the mace charge in the new year.
“I’m kind of sad today,” Gionet, a former BuzzFeed employee who became a racist troll and Charlottesville marcher during the Trump era, said. “I’m kind of depressed. I just got the news right before the show.”
Gionet expressed sadness that he would soon be serving his sentence, which starts on Jan. 2, 2023. Making matters worse, Gionet said, his prison sentence for his Jan. 6 actions is still ahead of him.
“And then, that’s not even the January 6 thing!” Gionet said. “Then I have to serve the January 6 time. So ah, it sucks! It sucks.”
Reviewing the months of prison time ahead of him, Gionet complained that the “justice system is very corrupt.”
Gionet’s lawyer didn’t return a request for comment.
Gionet is still awaiting sentencing on one Jan. 6-related charge of unlawfully protesting at the Capitol, which he pleaded guilty to in July. In a memo filed in court last week, federal prosecutors described Gionet as a “professional troll” and listed all the times during the riot that Gionet berated Capitol Police officers with explicit language. The government has asked for Gionet to be sentenced to 75 days on the Jan. 6 case.
But while the riot has thrown Gionet’s life into a tailspin, he did make some money off of it—sort of. In their sentencing memo, prosecutors recount an FBI interview that was part of Gionet’s plea deal. In the meeting, Gionet said he made roughly $2,000 in donations during the riot while streaming on DLive, a livestreaming site that was popular at the time with far-right personalities that had been pushed off of more mainstream platforms.
Gionet hasn’t seen the money yet, though, according to his FBI interview. DLive refused to pay the donations out to him, he told the agents, meaning that even those meager returns from the riot are still locked up.
