Gloucester County Jan. 6 rioter, dubbed ‘FashNSlash’ online, sentenced to prison for deflating police car tires

A Gloucester County man who admitted to tussling with officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and later letting the air out of the tires on one of their cars has been sentenced to eight months in federal prison.

Philip S. Young, 61, a retired boilermaker, struggled to describe what came over him that day while addressing a federal judge during his sentencing hearing Tuesday in Washington.

He maintained that he deeply regretted his actions and noted, as an indicator of his respect for police officers, that he anonymously sends a hoagie tray to his local police precinct each Jan. 9 to celebrate Law Enforcement Appreciation Day.

“I was overcome by mob mentality, and I willingly participated in the disorder,” Young told U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich in a letter submitted to the court. “I had never been in an environment like the one on that day, and I don’t have an answer for why I allowed myself to be caught up in it.”

In addition to the prison term, Friedrich ordered Young to serve three years’ probation upon his release and pay $2,000 in restitution for the damage the rioters caused to the Capitol that day.

His sentence makes him the seventh person out of the 14 convicted so far from New Jersey to be sent to prison for their roles in the attack.

In all, 26 of the roughly 950 people the Justice Department has charged so far have hailed from New Jersey with crimes ranging from misdemeanor illegal entry to felony assaults on police.

Still, for Young, it could have been far worse.

Prosecutors had sought to imprison Young for more than three years, calling his actions on Jan. 6 “the epitome of disrespect for the law.”

Officer body-cam footage showed Young twice joining mobs of rioters who uprooted metal barricades near the Capitol’s Upper West Terrace and used them as battering rams to push back police lines.

It took a shot of pepper spray to the face to deter him. But rather than leave the scene, Young was later caught on camera letting the air out of a police vehicle parked nearby — an act of defiance he’d later describe in an interview with the FBI as a “third-grade prank” that left him feeling giddy.

But defense lawyer Christopher O’Malley maintained that no officers were injured by Young’s actions that day, unlike most other Capitol riot defendants who had been convicted of assaulting officers and sentenced to lengthier prison terms.

And, he added, his client deeply regretted his actions.

After the FBI began circulating the photo of Young letting the air out of the Capitol police car, it took little time for the avid community of amateur online sleuths who have identified dozens of Capitol rioters to notice a distinctive logo on the jacket he wore that day — that of his union Local 28 of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers based in Eastampton Township.

Though they didn’t yet know his name, those online sedition hunters dubbed him “FashNSlash” — a nod to both the fascistic tactics of the rioters that day and the initial belief that the photo showed Young slashing the police car’s tires.

Once the FBI finally caught up to him in August 2021, Young admitted to using the barricades to push back police and that he’d let the air out of a police car tire. But he insisted he wasn’t violent, describing his actions in an interview with agents as “aggressive at best.”

“It’s like being at work when sh— happens,” he told the agents, according to government court filings. “You can’t remember all the details. You just get caught up.”

Despite his apparent flippancy back then, Young pleaded guilty last year to all seven of the counts on which he was indicted — including assaulting police officers, civil disorder, and illegally entering Capitol grounds — without any plea deal offered by the prosecution.

O’Malley maintained Tuesday that his client had no intention of engaging in violence on Jan. 6 and had only stopped by the Capitol on his way to his car after hearing President Donald Trump speak when he got caught up in the moment.

And outside of his admiration for Trump, O’Malley said, Young had taken little interest in politics for most of his life. Voting records show he’d been registered as a Democrat as recently as early 2020.

“Young got swept away by the mob, and with it, so too did most of his better judgment and character,” O’Malley wrote in a filing in advance of the sentencing. “He is mortified by his behavior and terribly regrets his conduct.”