Esteban Soto, the son of Ines and Liz Soto, reads statements from his parents outside of the Eldon B. Mahon U.S. Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. Two judges sentenced seven defendants in the Prairieland Detention Center attack in the federal court Wednesday.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
Ben Florey, an attorney for defendant Nathan Baumann, speaks to reporters after Judge Mark Pittman gave his client a 22-month sentence outside of the Eldon B. Mahon U.S. Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. Two judges sentenced seven defendants in the Prairieland Detention Center attack in the federal court Wednesday.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
(From left) Ben Florey and Robert Leahey, attorneys for defendant Nathan Baumann, speak to reporters after Judge Mark Pittman gave their client a 22-month sentence outside of the Eldon B. Mahon U.S. Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. Two judges sentenced seven defendants in the Prairieland Detention Center attack in the federal court Wednesday.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
Protestors hold up signs with faces of the Prairieland defendants outside of the Eldon B. Mahon U.S. Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. Two judges sentenced seven defendants in the Prairieland Detention Center attack in the federal court Wednesday.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
FORT WORTH — The defendants have described the case as a peaceful immigration protest that spiraled out of control. Federal prosecutors called it an antifa-inspired terrorist attack that ended with an Alvarado police officer shot.
On Wednesday, seven of the more than a dozen defendants in the federal terrorism case learned their punishment: As much as 50 years for the man who went to trial, and as little as a year and 10 months for one who pleaded guilty and cooperated. Last week, Benjamin Song, who opened fire on an Alvarado police officer and was described as the group’s leader, was sentenced to a century in federal prison.
The case has become an early test of the Trump administration’s effort to use terrorism laws against far-left activists. Prosecutors say the defendants were part of a coordinated “antifa cell,” while defense attorneys and supporters say the government is stretching the law to recast political protest as domestic terrorism.
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Related: Judges hand down lengthy sentences to ‘antifa cell’ members in Alvarado ICE attack
The sentences are the latest in a closely watched prosecution stemming from the July 4, 2025 demonstration outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, where prosecutors said the group — dressed in black, with some carrying firearms — used fireworks and vandalism to draw officers out before Song shot at police.
President Donald Trump designated antifa a domestic terrorist organization last year. The case against the Alvarado defendants may be the first of cases to come: Last month, federal prosecutors charged 15 people in Minnesota with trying to obstruct the administration’s immigration crackdown there, alleging they were antifa members who conspired to block federal arrests and deportations.
Defense attorneys and supporters have condemned the Alvarado case as politically driven overreach and an effort to equate left-leaning protest activity with terrorism. Some defendants who pleaded guilty before the trial acknowledged their roles, expressed remorse and said they regretted how the demonstration devolved into violence.
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Two sentencing hearings were held simultaneously Wednesday on different floors of the Eldon B. Mahon U.S. Courthouse, with U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, a President Donald Trump appointee who presided over the trial, and Chief U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor overseeing the proceedings.
After sentencing Ines Soto to 50 years in federal prison, O’Connor, a President George W. Bush appointee, sentenced Joy Gibson and Rebecca Morgan to the maximum 15 years. Both pleaded guilty to one count of providing material support to terrorists.
At Soto’s sentencing, O’Connor said political disputes cannot be allowed to turn violent.
“It’s an assault on the democratic process,” the judge said from the bench after handing down the punishment.
The defendants, dressed in orange-and-white striped jumpsuits and handcuffs, showed no emotion as O’Connor read their sentences.
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As a U.S. marshal escorted Gibson from the courtroom, she turned toward her family.
“I love you,” she mouthed. “I love you.”
Phillip Linder, attorney for defendant Seth Sikes, speaks to Sikes’ parents after Judge Mark Pittman gave his client a 72-month sentence outside of the Eldon B. Mahon U.S. Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. Two judges sentenced seven defendants in the Prairieland Detention Center attack in the federal court Wednesday.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
Cooperating defendants received lower sentences
Pittman sentenced Lynette Sharp and John Thomas to more than nine years each, Seth Sikes to six years and Nathan Baumann to just under two. All four terms were years below what federal sentencing guidelines recommended, including one that fell sharply below the suggested range.
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Pittman said he believed all four defendants deserved credit for their cooperation with investigators, their testimony at their co-defendant’s trials and expressions of remorse. But the judge said the serious nature of their crimes also weighed heavily in his decisions.
“This could have been an absolute slaughter,” Pittman said, describing a shot fired that night by Alvarado police Lt. Thomas Gross as a “magic bullet” that struck Song’s assault rifle, caused the weapon to jam and likely saved lives. Song received the longest sentence of the group last week: 100 years in federal prison, with no eligibility for parole under the modern federal system.
Among those sentenced Wednesday by Pittman was Nathan Baumann, who was the youngest of the defendants. The College Station resident had just turned 20 a few days before the July 4 incident, according to his attorney, Ben Florey.
Baumann was homeschooled and sheltered most of his life, Florey said. He was sympathetic to the immigrant community and was looking for a way to get involved when he met a woman at a “No Kings Rally” last year who told him about her group.
“He just was looking for associates and friends,” Florey said. “He was looking for acceptance.”
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Florey said Baumann offered some of the most detailed testimony at the March trial for his co-defendants. Pittman agreed, and gave him the shortest sentence that any of the defendants received — 22 months. Baumann leaned forward in his seat and sobbed when he heard the lighter-than-expected prison term.
“He was elated,” said Robert Leahey, another of Baumann’s attorneys.
Pittman gave defendants Lynette Sharp and John Thomas the same prison terms: 9 years and two months. Neither was at the facility at the time of the incident, but helped Song evade capture afterward.
Sharp and Thomas expressed remorse in their remarks to the judge before their sentencing.
“To be human is to make mistakes, sometimes terrible mistakes,” Sharp said. When that happens “the right thing to do is to own up to it” and accept responsibility, she said.
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Related: 11 people accused of ‘planned ambush’ on Alvarado ICE detention center, feds say
“I am so very sorry I got involved in this endeavor,” Thomas told the judge.
Pittman noted that Sikes was the first to turn himself in and offered investigators tips on how to locate Song.
Sikes said he “loved his country” and “disavowed” his actions and those of his codefendants.
“I wish that I could have stopped this,” he said.
Hope Song, mother of defendant Benjamin Song, speaks about her son’s case outside of the Eldon B. Mahon U.S. Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. Two judges sentenced seven defendants in the Prairieland Detention Center attack in the federal court Wednesday.
Juan Figueroa/The Dallas Morning News
Supporters outside decry prosecution
Supporters again gathered outside the courthouse with signs denouncing the prosecution as politically motivated, echoing the scene during the 12-day trial in February and March and last week’s sentencing hearings.
Brian Bouffard, a Fort Worth attorney whose client, Zachary Evetts, was sentenced last week by Pittman to 50 years in prison, said the guilty pleas and cooperation from the latest group of defendants appeared critical to building the prosecution’s case and likely contributed to their lighter sentences.
“If you plead guilty in federal court, and you do so promptly, you can get some time taken off of your sentencing guideline calculations,” Bouffard said. “There’s also, in my opinion, a subtext here of, they helped the government out and bolstered a case that, without them, I don’t think would have even come close to being proven.”
Bouffard, who said he was at the courthouse running an errand unrelated to the protest, said work was underway on an appeal for Evetts, citing Pittman’s conservative track record. Pittman once compared Democratic President Joe Biden’s student loan relief plan to the laws that allowed Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany.
Related: Mixed verdict reached in Prairieland antifa terrorism case
“Judge Pittman is a Trump appointee, and it shows,” he said.
After the sentencing hearings concluded, family members and supporters of the defendants condemned the punishments outside the courthouse. Esteban Soto, the teenage son of Ines and Elizabeth Soto, spoke on behalf of his parents. Both received 50-year terms. Prosecutors said Ines and Elizabeth Soto were part of a group that created and distributed “insurrectionary materials” called zines and were arrested at the scene.
“The government is using zines and a printing press to sentence me to 50 years in prison,” Esteban Soto read from his mother’s prepared remarks. “This is an attempt at silencing dissent.”
“The weight of the sentences that have been handed down is crushing,” Esteban added, reading from his father’s remarks, “but we should not be surprised.”
Susan Kent, the final defendant in the case, also pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists. She is scheduled to be sentenced July 6.
Staff writer Sally Avila Edwards contributed to this report from Fort Worth.
Correction 7:32 p.m. July 1, 2026: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated John Thomas was the youngest of the defendants. The youngest was Nathan Baumann.