A frontrunner of the far-right Proud Boys group who was photographed grinning and smoking a cigarette within the halls of Congress throughout Wednesday’s riot has been arrested, federal officers mentioned.
FBI brokers collared Nicholas R. Ochs, 34 of Hawaii, at Daniel Okay. Inouye Worldwide Airport in Honolulu on Thursday as he was arriving dwelling from Washington, the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace mentioned in an announcement.
He’s charged with misdemeanor illegal entry of restricted buildings or grounds.
Prosecutors used Ochs’ personal social media accounts as proof of his participation within the pro-Trump mob that breached the Capitol on Wednesday as Congress ready to vote whether or not to certify the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election. His smoking selfie is cited within the grievance.
“Hi there from the Capital[sic] lol,” Ochs wrote on Twitter Wednesday afternoon, captioning a shot of him and one other particular person with lit cigarettes of their mouths.
Ochs, the chief of the Proud Boys’ Hawaii faction, admitted he was contained in the Capitol Constructing, however claimed he was there as a “skilled journalist” in an interview with CNN.
“We didn’t have to interrupt in, I simply walked in and filmed,” he mentioned, in keeping with the grievance. “There have been hundreds of individuals in there — that they had no management of the state of affairs. I didn’t get stopped or questioned.”
The grievance additionally references pro-Trump messages Ochs posted to the Parler app in style among the many president’s right-wing supporters.
“Present this tweet to leftists and say they gained’t do s–t when he simply retains being president,” Ochs wrote in November, alongside a tweet from President Trump declaring he gained the election. “They’re getting scared, they usually don’t perform after they’re scared.”
Ochs’ case is amongst greater than 50 which were filed in reference to Wednesday’s riots.
