Gunman in ‘Pizzagate’ Shooting Is Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison<br />By MATTHEW HAAG and MAYA SALAMJUNE 22, 2017<br />A 29-year-old North Carolina man who fired a military-style assault rifle inside a popular Washington pizzeria in December,<br />wrongly believing he was saving children trapped in a sex-slave ring, was sentenced on Thursday to four years in prison.<br />He was investigating unfounded but widespread online reports of children held there in a child abuse scheme led by Hillary Clinton, a theory known as “Pizzagate.”<br />But Mr. Welch, who pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges in March, rescued no children.<br />The judge, Ketanji Brown Jackson of Federal District Court in Washington, sentenced Mr. Welch to four years in prison and three years of probation.<br />The owner of Comet Ping Pong, James Alefantis, said in a phone interview on Thursday evening<br />that he was relieved the case was over but said that his name had been tainted by the conspiracies
