MADISON, Wis. — A Beloit man charged in the 2020 vandalism of the Col. Hans Christian Heg statue on the Wisconsin State Capitol grounds was sentenced Wednesday to one year of probation, online court records show.
Rodney Clendening, 36, had faced a misdemeanor charge of theft as a party to a crime stemming from the protest on June 23, 2020, that saw two statues — the Heg statue and the Forward statue — pulled from their pedestals by protesters. He pleaded guilty to the charge in court Wednesday.
According to a criminal complaint, Clendening was seen on camera walking with two other men who were carrying the Heg statue’s head after it had been torn down. The group reportedly put the statue in the trunk of Clendening’s vehicle and drove away.
Protesters threw the body of the statue of Heg, an abolitionist and a Union colonel who died in the Civil War, into Lake Monona; it was later recovered.
Both statues were later restored and returned to their pedestals on the Capitol Square last year; the Heg statue, which had to have its head completely remade, was rededicated during Memorial Day weekend this year.
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The protests began following the arrest of a Black activist who was protesting outside a downtown restaurant earlier that day. Multiple people were charged in the wake of the protests, including a Madison man who was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for firebombing the City-County Building.
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