CAPITOL PROTESTER JACOB Chansley has been sentenced to prison for his role in the violent scenes in Washington DC earlier this year.

Chansley was a distinctive figure in footage of the storming of the Capitol Building as he was armed with a spear and wore a fur-trimmed horned helmet as he rallied in support of then-president Donald Trump on 6 January.

He was sentenced to 41 months in custody.

The Capitol was besieged by Trump supporters as the US Senate met to confirm the election victory of Joe Biden.

Chansley, who pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding, was among the first rioters to enter the building.

He riled up the crowd with a bullhorn as officers tried to control them, posed for photos, profanely referred to then-vice president Mike Pence as a traitor while in the Senate.

He wrote a note to Pence saying: “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.”

He also made a social media post in November in which he promoted hangings for traitors.

The image of Chansley with his face painted like the American flag, wearing a bear skin head dress and looking as if he were howling was one of the first striking images to emerge from the riot.

He is among roughly 600 people charged in the riot that forced politicians into hiding as they were meeting to certify President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.

Fifty others have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanour charges of demonstrating in the Capitol.

Before he was sentenced, Chansley told US district judge Royce Lamberth it was wrong for him to enter the Capitol and that he accepts responsibility for his actions.

He has previously called himself the “QAnon Shaman” but has since repudiated the QAnon movement, which is centred on the baseless belief that Trump was fighting a cabal of Satan-worshipping, child sex traffickers.