“Bob’s Burgers” actor Jay Johnston was sentenced to one year in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Johnston was part of a group of rioters that tried to push past the police officers who were guarding the tunnel entrance to the Capitol. He recorded the event with a cellphone, according to prosecutors.

He said he never would’ve thought he would be involved in an event like the Jan. 6 riots, and said he regretted that he “made it more difficult for the police to do their job.”

“That was because of my own ignorance, I believe,” he said. “If I had been more political, I could have seen that coming, perhaps.”

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said Johnston’s “conduct on Jan. 6 was quite problematic. Reprehensible, really.”

Prosecutors requested an 18-month sentence for the actor, because “he thinks his participation in one of the most serious crimes against our democracy is a joke.”

They wrote that he used a metal bike rack to climb the stone wall to reach the Capitol’s West Plaza where he then headed to the tunnel entrance.

“When he was under the archway, he turned and waved to other rioters, beckoning them to join him in fighting the police,” prosecutors wrote.

He acknowledged his role in the riot in a text to an acquaintance, saying “the news has presented it as an attack.”

“It actually wasn’t. Thought it kind of turned into that. It was a mess,” Johnston wrote.

He had his cell phone seized when FBI agents raided his California home in June 2021.

He pled guilty in July to interfering with police officers during a civil disorder, which could’ve landed him five years in prison.

His lawyer, defense attorney Stanley Woodward, said his career in Hollywood has greatly suffered due to his involvement in the riot.

He was fired from his recurring part as a rival restaurateur in the popular animated series “Bob’s Burgers,” has lost at least one movie role and has “essentially been blacklisted.”

“Instead, Mr. Johnston has worked as a handyman for the last two years — an obvious far cry from his actual expertise and livelihood in film and television,” Mr. Woodward wrote, adding that the government has been much harder on him than needed merely because he was already a prominent public figure.

— This article is based in part on wire service reports.

• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.