'Pizzagate' gunman sentenced to 4 years in prison

WASHINGTON -- An online conspiracy theory dubbed "pizzagate" ended Thursday with real-world consequences when a North Carolina man was sentenced to prison for arming himself with an assault rifle, traveling to the nation's capital and firing his weapon inside a neighborhood pizza restaurant.

Edgar Maddison Welch's "ill-conceived plot" last year did "actual damage to the lives of real people," a judge said before sentencing him to four years in prison.

Judge Ketanji B. Jackson said she'd never seen a case like Welch's, and she gave him a punishment on the upper end of guidelines, in part to send a message to others.

If Welch believed an internet conspiracy theory children were being harmed at the restaurant, he should have notified law enforcement, not attempted to take the law into his own hands, the judge said during Thursday's hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington.