Amit Mehta, Washington DC District Judge, sentenced Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and his involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack.

Judge Mehta, before handing down the sentence, said: “You, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy.”

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“You are not a political prisoner,” he continued, adding that he believes the Oath Keepers founder represents an “ongoing threat” to the country.

Kelly Meggs, another Oath Keepers member, will be sentenced later on Thursday.

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Who is Amit Mehta?

Amit Mehta is a United States district judge. He was born in Patan, Gujarat, India in 1971. The 52-year-old was raised in Reisterstown, Maryland. He graduated from Franklin High School.

Mehta received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1993 from Georgetown University. He then got a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1997.

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The 52-year-old was appointed to the District of Columbia court in December 2014. He worked at Latham & Watkins LLP’s San Francisco office before clerking for Susan P Graber of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

He also worked Zuckerman Spaeder LLP from 1999 to 2002. Mehta then joined the District of Columbia Public Defender Service as a staff attorney.

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In 2007, he returned to Zuckerman Spaeder. Judge Amit Mehta also served on the Board of Directors of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project. He is the former co-chair of the District of Columbia Bar’s Criminal Law and Individual Rights Section Steering Committee.