Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021. - Demonstrators breached security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images

When thousands of Donald Trump supporters surrounded and stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, they were there: 29 Tampa Bay residents charged with federal crimes over the riot.

They are an aspiring pro wrestler, a media entrepreneur – parents, veterans, small business owners. They all chased a version of the American Dream. Some had never even voted before 2020.

The group has so far produced 10 guilty pleas, three prison sentences and a fugitive. Others fight to prove their innocence, claiming they were provoked out of peaceful protest.

Seeking to understand who these residents were as citizens and neighbors – and whether they showed any tendency toward violence or disorder – the Tampa Bay Times reviewed hundreds of pages of public records produced over the course of an American life.

Who are Tampa Bay’s Jan. 6 rioters, really? Here’s what we found out.

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY

Paul Allard Hodgkins III

Smiling long-haired man with beard and mustache
Federal Court documents

Demographics: 40, Republican

Residence: Tampa, Sulphur Springs (median household income: $27,546)

Job: Crane operator

Charges: Felony obstruction of an official proceeding

Pleaded: Guilty. Sentenced to and served eight months. Released.

An Eagle Scout with a clean record, Hodgkin’s dream was to be a pro wrestler. He appeared in small shows as Flash Farenhyte, and later, Flesh Farenhyte. Years later he danced so vigorously to “YMCA” while waving Trump flags on Dale Mabry Highway that motorists took video.

He told the Deplorable Author on Rumble that he didn’t feel anger on Jan. 6, but found voter fraud rumors worrying. He gravitated more toward “how much fun” it was in the “MAGA movement,” where he became “Patriot Paul” and liked the “upbeat attitude” of Trump supporters during a depressing pandemic. Inside the Capitol, he discouraged others from destruction and said he’d used his first aid skills to help the injured.

On Rumble, Hodgkins said Trump 2016 was the first time he’d “really taken an interest in politics.” He told the Washington Post he felt like the home ownership attained by his father, a union elevator mechanic, was out of reach. A Florida resident since 2007, he registered to vote just before the 2016 election.

Hodgkins lived in an $800 a month rental with two cats and volunteered for homeless and animal charities. He decided to go to D.C. on Jan. 6 at the last minute, he told the Deplorable Author, after being sent a link to a “very affordable” $300 hotel and “March on Congress” bus package organized by Women 4 Trump Florida out of Sarasota.

Mitchell Todd Gardner II

Law enforcement mugshot of a man
Pinellas County Sheriff

Demographics: 35, Republican, divorced, father, business owner

Residence: Seffner (median household income $62,348)

Job: Roofing industry / business owner

Charges: Felony obstruction of an official proceeding; others

Pleaded: Guilty, sentencing on Jan. 3, 2023

Prosecutors described Gardner as making a hefty income through a roofing industry job and owning a BMW. He incorporated T&J Loss Consulting in 2019. The company received a $20,000 paycheck protection loan shortly after Jan. 6.

He was married less than a year before the Capitol attack and divorced months after. Prosecutors said he was “staying in hotels, and essentially couch surfing” and had a one-way ticket to California upon his arrest at Tampa International Airport. He previously lived in Ohio, where he registered to vote but never did.

Gardner admitted to being at the Capitol where he shouted “drag them out,” “pull the cops out,” “fight for Trump” and “break the f—king window.” He sprayed police with their own pepper spray, then used the canister to bash a window, waving for others to follow him in. There, he handed a rioter a table leg later used in an assault. He was dubbed #leatherhaneshisway online due to his jacket and visible boxers.

Free on bond since July of 2021, he was required to reside at a sober living facility. He faces up to 45 years, but sentencing guidelines call for between four and five.

Alan Fischer III

Law enforcement mugshot of a man
Pinellas County Sheriff

Demographics: 28, Republican, veteran

Residence: Tampa, Ballast Point (median household income $79,046)

Job: Mortgage broker

Charges: Felony assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers with a dangerous weapon; others

Pleaded: Not guilty, trial pending

Fischer told The Gateway Pundit he went to Washington only to protect peaceful “flag-waving patriots” from “Antifa and Black Lives Matter guys who want to stab as many Proud Boys as they can.” Prosecutors say Fischer is on video hurling chairs at officers.

His attorney vehemently denied it, criticizing video evidence as unverified and possibly doctored – claiming it shows an impossible throw. In a successful motion to have Fischer released on bond, after two months in the Pinellas jail, his attorney highlighted his first aid efforts.

Amateur investigators calling him #raybanterrorist found his real name and published it online after discovering his fashion modeling photos. Fischer has raised more than $19,000 in donations online for legal fees.

Fischer grew up in Nutley, New Jersey, was a choir boy and attended Seton Hall Prep, working to help pay his own tuition. He achieved his dream of serving in rescue missions in the Air Force, before being discharged with “100 percent disability,” his lawyer said. Fischer followed his parents to Tampa – his stepfather is also charged for Jan. 6 – and has an advertising degree from University of Tampa. He works for a mortgage company and the founder said he is being groomed to run it. He also works part time with on-site rescue crew “at remote locations where usual first responders cannot timely arrive,” per court records.

He appeared in a Proud Boys group photo outside D.C. bar Harry’s on Dec. 12, 2020 in which they all flash the “OK” hand gesture the Anti-Defamation League labeled a white power sign. Proud Boys have said it simply means “OK,” but is a way to troll, or provoke, liberals. Fischer’s lawyer said the Proud Boys are just a men’s “drinking fraternity.”

In 2019 he was part of a fracas in Ybor City involving other men and a police horse – his lawyer called it a “savage attack” on her client – that ended with Fischer’s very physical arrest in the middle of Seventh Avenue. Originally charged with felony resisting, prosecutors reduced the charges to disorderly conduct, to which he pleaded guilty.. A witness claimed the police went too far.

Caleb Richard Berry

Man in a crowd, wearing a bandanna over the lower part of his face and a backwards baseball cap
Federal Court documents

Demographics: 21, No party affiliation

Residence: Tampa, Wellswood (median household income $53,145)

Charges: Felony conspiracy to defraud the United States, one other offense

Pleaded: Guilty, agreed to cooperate. Sentence pending.

A year before the attack, Berry was a senior at Hillsborough High, where he studied culinary arts and rose to manager of the school’s Terrier Cafe kitchen.

He was photographed reportedly working security for Roger Stone before the attack on the Capitol. Online sleuths dubbed him #LeatherOK for the jacket he wore, but to the Oath Keepers, he was “Breacher.” On Jan. 6, the Tampa-born, then-19-year-old with no record was among the helmeted Oath Keepers moving in military stack formation up the Capitol steps. Also in the group, prosecutors say, was Englewood’s Graydon Young and Sarasota’s Joseph Hackett, both in their 50s. Berry admitted he helped breach the east rotunda. Before that, Berry was in planning chats with Florida Oath Keepers and later admitted discussing the need to bring guns. He told the FBI he rode to D.C. following an RV he was told was packed with weapons.

Berry agreed to assist prosecutors in exchange for their requesting a shorter prison term. He faces a max of 25 years, but guidelines call for 4.25 to 5.25 years and a fine of $20,000 to $200,000.

He told the Hillsborough yearbook, “Family always comes first,” and that even “when he lost the connection with his father, he kept in touch with his half siblings.” He expressed ambitions to start a restaurant or cook in the Marines. “Don’t be afraid of burning things,” he said, “because burning things is how you learn.” Post arrest, Berry appears to have moved in with his mother and stepfather, who work for a truck sales business. Berry first voted in 2020.

Jeremy Michael Brown

Law enforcement mugshot of man
Federal Court documents

Demographics: 48, Republican, divorced, father, veteran, former business owner

Residence: Palm River-Clair Mel, unincorporated Hillsborough County (median household income $48,819)

Job: Retired U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant

Charges: Misdemeanor enter or remain in any restricted building or grounds in D.C.; felony weapons charges in Florida

Pleaded: Not guilty, in jail awaiting trial

Brown is running for a Florida House seat representing parts of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties while residing in jail. A judge cited a sign at Brown’s home warning any returning law enforcement officers to “bring a bigger tactical package” as reason to deny bond. At the hearing, agents said Brown had $6,000 in cash and a list of items necessary to live off the grid.

Initially charged with misdemeanors at the Capitol, the retired Army Green Beret faces eight felony charges in Florida after a search of his home turned up grenades, unregistered guns and classified documents. Brown told Roger Stone in an interview that evidence was “planted.”

An online campaign in Brown’s name raised more than $100,000 to fund his defense. Prosecutors pointed out that Brown had at points used a public defender.

Brown is accused of planning with other local Oath Keepers, including Tampa’s Caleb Berry, Sarasota County’s Graydon Young and Florida leader Kelly Meggs, but has not been charged with them. Meggs is on trial for sedition alongside national leader Stewart Rhodes.

While allegedly planning for Jan. 6, he messaged a group, “We have a RV an Van going. Plenty of Gun Ports left to fill. … If you can, come to my house anytime Saturday. … This way we can load plan, route plan, and conduct PCIs (Pre Combat Inspections). I would LIKE to depart by 0645 on Sunday morning … then push to DC on the 4th. This will give us the 4th/5th to set up, conduct route recons, CTR (Close Target Reconnaissance) and any link ups needed.”

In arguing to deny bond, prosecutors noted sheriff’s reports documenting when Brown had been subject to the Baker Act, a Florida law that allows a person to be held for treatment if deemed a threat to themselves or others. His girlfriend reported him missing in 2019 and told police she worried he would harm himself.

Brown’s campaign platform includes fighting medical mandates like vaccines, imposing stricter election laws and justice reform to “treat convicted criminals humanely.” A campaign flyer distributed in south St. Petersburg called him a “pro-Frederick Douglass candidate,” referring to the 19th-century abolitionist who escaped slavery.

Brown’s campaign site says he was born in Kentucky to a single mom and raised in North Carolina by his veteran grandfather. He has five daughters from a previous marriage and has been in a relationship with his girlfriend for eight years. He previously owned a limousine company called Blu Moon Transportation.

Matthew Ross Council

Law enforcement mugshot of a man
Hillsborough County Jail

Demographics: 50, Republican, divorced, former business owner

Residence: Riverview (median household income $55,506)

Job: Former high school teacher

Charges: Felony assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers; others

Pleaded: Guilty. Sentencing on Nov. 1.

Council used his body as he had on the field at Liberty University, where he once rushed for four touchdowns in a game. When he encountered a line of Capitol officers, “I put my head down” and charged, pushing them “about 50 feet,” he told podcaster Sovereign Souls on Parler. The intent was to “allow Trump supporters to get through to go talk” … but nobody followed me.” He fell, and was arrested. In custody, he apologized and said he did not mean to hurt anyone.

When he traveled to D.C., "I actually believed, at the time, that President Trump's speech was gonna include evidence [of voter fraud] like the flies with the cameras on them … I thought he was gonna expose everything at that rally.”

Online, Council was dubbed #rabidchipmunk, for a photo where he appears to froth at the mouth. On Rumble, he called himself a “digital warrior,” posting as “cookiepuss” on Telegram and GETTR, where he mostly posted about trucker “freedom convoys” fighting COVID restrictions. He also drew attention for claims he was abused in jail and a Tampa medical facility due to his Jan. 6 ties. He was held at both after an arrest on felony battery charges six months after Jan. 6, accused of pushing his father down. He raised nearly $10,000 in donations after posting a video of insects in his room at the Tampa facility, and claiming staff taunted him with music. But he also admitted to being delusional, saying he was denied timely medication and suffered from old head injuries. In 2019, he sued Liberty and the NCAA over concussions.

Council used to be a teacher in the medical academy at a high school in Lake Worth. In 2015, he talked about his students overcoming adversity in a campaign to raise money to buy classroom equipment: “The first time a student told me she was homeless, I was in the middle of telling her she could not pass the class if she didn't turn in a major project … I had to quickly leave the classroom so I didn't cry in front of her. … I could fill a book with stories of their hardships, but that would overshadow my kids' accomplishments.” He has lived with his parents in Hillsborough County for the past six years.

Brian Boele

Demographics: 59, Married, Republican, homeowner, former business owner

Residence: A condo on Harbor Island (median household income $101,094)

Job: Retired firefighter

Charges: Felony civil disorder; others

Pleaded: Not guilty, trial pending

Boele was a New Jersey fire captain who assisted with cleanup at the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks. In the 2000s, he sued several World Trade Center properties, claiming the work led to breathing issues. In 2021, he was one of thousands of plaintiffs who settled out of court. He lamented in a New Jersey business publication in 2009 that he was unable to get a Small Business Administration loan for his struggling coffee shop during the Great Recession. “You see billions going to the banks, but it’s not going down to the little guy,” Boele told njbiz.com. After running several small New Jersey businesses — including Belgian waffle shops in Montclair and South Orange, which the couple eventually sold — Boele and his wife moved to Florida around 2016.

Although he lived in Tampa on Jan. 6, Boele’s family moved to Lakeland’s Lake Morton district shortly before his arrest in June 2022.

Boele is accused of illegally entering the Capitol grounds and going to the Lower West Terrace, where officers were trying to hold back an unruly mob. In May, Boele, who was dubbed “#StuporHeroPB” by online slueths, was indicted with others including his stepson, Tampa’s Alan Fischer III, a member of the Proud Boys, Zachary Johnson, of St. Petersburg, and Dion Rajewski, of Largo.

Michael Steven Perkins

Law enforcement mugshot of a man
Hillsborough County Sheriff

Demographics: 39, Republican

Residence: Plant City (median household income $72,143)

Job: Handyman

Pleaded: Not guilty, trial set for March 6, 2023

Charges: Felony assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a weapon; others

Prior Record: Grand theft in 2006

Prosecutors said Perkins’ wife of 16 years is also visible in police body camera footage from Jan. 6, but she was not charged with any crime. Less than six months after registering to vote for the first time, he’s accused of scuffling with D.C. police officers alongside a group of friends from Polk County, including fugitive Jonathan Pollock, Pollock’s sister Olivia and their cousin Joshua Doolin.

The government accuses Perkins of thrusting a flagpole into the chest of a police officer, who was rushing to help other officers pulled into the crowd of rioters. Perkins pleaded guilty to trespassing and two counts of felony grand theft on a construction site in 2006, for which he received probation, but otherwise had no record. Free on bond, he can only leave home to work.

PINELLAS COUNTY

Michael Gary Stepakoff

Man in a black MAGA hat
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

Demographics: 57, Republican, married, father, homeowner, business owner

Residence: Oldsmar (median household income $79,250)

Job: Messianic rabbi

Charges: Misdemeanor parading, demonstrating or picketing in the Capitol

Pleaded: Guilty. Sentenced to a year probation, 60 hours community service, fines of $1,242.

Rabbi Stepakoff founded Palm Harbor’s Temple New Jerusalem, a house of worship for messianic Judaism combining Jewish traditions and Christianity, nearly two decades ago.

His attorneys described Stepakoff’s five minutes in the Capitol, caught on camera, in simple terms. They said he walked in “looked around, took some photographs, shook hands with a police officer – and then he walked out.” They said he saw no violence.

Prosecutors countered that he engaged in “willful blindness.” He saw toppled barricades and people scaling walls, they said, walked past people crawling through windows and skirted past broken glass. He posted online: “storming the gates.”

“Entering the Capitol was a terrible mistake on my part. I deeply regret it,” Stepakoff said in court, adding it wasn’t civil disobedience, but that “I failed to properly appreciate the situation.”

The married father of four and former youth sports coach grew up in Atlanta, earned a law degree from Stetson University and practiced criminal defense. In 2006, his license was suspended for six months after he lost a civil suit to a former client. He voluntarily left law after that and dedicated himself to religious life.

Before he was sentenced, Stepakoff explained that he went to the Capitol to be part of a significant historic event and to make his voice heard. “If the GOP candidate lost, so be it,” he said. “There’s always another election, two years and four years later. That’s America.”

Marilyn Fassell

Woman with a black cap and a mask pulled down low, smoking a cigarette
Federal Court docs

Demographics: 59, Republican, married, homeowner

Residence: Largo (median household income $88,429)

Job: Certified nursing assistant

Charges: Misdemeanor disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building

Pleaded: Guilty, sentencing set for Dec. 9

Fassell drew attention online after she was photographed smoking a cigarette inside the Capitol.

Later, people took notice when she asked a judge to lift her restriction on carrying a gun, because her husband was gone nights umpiring baseball games. Fassell re-upped her request for a gun in August, after receiving an unsigned letter headed “Disciples of Democracy” that stated, “I personally am going to be the one to relieve the world of your ignorance. I’m gonna be the one to allow you to have another cigarette before you take your last breath.” Fassell’s request was denied. The letter writer, a retired firefighter accused of mailing many such letters, had already been arrested.

She moved to Florida from Minnesota about a decade ago as Marilyn Buetow. By 2013, she had moved in with Thomas Fassell, who she later married. The couple bought a house in Pinellas County. She told the Tampa Bay Times in 2021 that her arrest was a “joke” and she and her husband didn’t know entering the Capitol was illegal at the time. However, as part of her July plea agreement, she acknowledged that she did know she was illegally in the building: on video, she’s recorded saying “We busted in the Capitol.”

Thomas Fassell

Demographics: 68, Republican, married, homeowner, father

Residence: Largo (median household income: $88,429)

Job: Retired postal worker

Charges: Misdemeanor parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building

Pleaded: Guilty. Sentencing set for Dec. 9

Fassell joined the Air Force at 19. After returning home to Massachusetts, he was a postal clerk, known around Pittsfield for dressing up at work – Elvis for five Halloweens and once a homemade Tin Man costume, according to the Berkshire Eagle newspaper.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, he suffered from some financial difficulties, filing for bankruptcy three times and defaulting on a mortgage. He divorced the mother of his children and moved to Florida, where he began dating his current wife, Marilyn Fassell. In court, his wife said Fassell umpires baseball games at night.

Fassell is the son of a homemaker and a public works truck driver. After the 2020 election, the Fassells went to Washington, D.C., to protest what they saw as an unjust result. The situation deteriorated outside the Capitol and they walked through tear gas. Thomas told his wife he wanted to leave. They decided to stay.

They went inside carrying flagpoles and stayed for 40 minutes, with Marilyn yelling things such as “We busted in the Capitol.” Although Fassell told the Tampa Bay Times he did not brag to friends about their time in the Capitol, he admitted to doing so in a July 2022 court document.

Robert Scott Palmer

Law enforcement mugshot of a man
Courtesy of Voice of America

Demographics: 55, Republican, divorced, father, business owner

Residence: Largo (median household income $88,429)

Job: Carpet cleaning business

Charges: Felony assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon

Pleaded: Guilty. Serving five years at Coleman federal prison.

Prior record: Organized fraud

In a fundraising campaign, Palmer admitted throwing a fire extinguisher at police, but said he was “on the defense” after being pepper sprayed and shot with “rubber bullets.”

“When you threw the fire extinguisher and the plank at the police officers, were you acting in self-defense?,” asked the judge at sentencing. “No, ma’am, I was not,” Palmer said.

In a handwritten letter, Palmer wrote that he realized he’d been lied to and manipulated by President Trump and others. “They kept spitting out the false notes about a stolen election and how it was ‘our duty’ to stand up to tyranny. Little did I realize that they were the tyrannical ones, desperate to hold onto power at any cost, even by creating the chaos they knew would happen with such rhetoric.”

But from prison, he recently told the Tampa Bay Times: “I still believe this election was fraudulent and there’s no way you’re going to tell me Biden who stayed in his basement all election season got more votes than even President Obama. But I don’t care about that. The hell with politics. All I want is to get out and rebuild my life.”

Palmer reiterated that he is not an extremist – 2020 was his first time volunteering for a campaign – and he went to the Capitol “expecting a peaceful protest.” He said he regrets how he reacted when he did not find one. “I was wrong.”

Palmer had a felony fraud conviction at 21, taking payment to install carpets he never delivered, and he once served 30 days for a DUI. He was thrice divorced and a few years out of bankruptcy upon his arrest, but was having a three-year run of success in business. He said the higher income was partly why he’d supported Trump in 2020. He first registered to vote in 2012, when he was 45.

Palmer has four children, he told Voice of America. Two appeared at his sentencing. He hopes the other two, “who are Christians like I am,” will forgive him.

Dion Rajewski

Law enforcement mugshot of a man
Pinellas County Sheriff

Demographics: 62, Republican, business owner, veteran

Residence: Largo (median household income $40,197)

Job: Owns pressure washing business

Charges: Felony physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a weapon; others

Pleaded: Not guilty, trial pending

Prior record: Grand theft in 1990

Rajewski faces up to 20 years on charges he used pepper spray during the attack.

According to his profile on the U.S. Marines website leatherneck.com, Rajewski was a Marine from 1979 to 1985 and reached the rank of sergeant E-5. The hat he wore to the Capitol read: “Once a Marine, Always a Marine.” Online investigators dubbed him #badmarinepb for his proximity to Proud Boys in photos.

Despite a Florida address since at least 1989, he did not register to vote in the state until September of 2020. Rajewski was at the end of a string of financial troubles as President Donald Trump came into office, with a foreclosure and more than $156,000 in court judgments against him from creditors from 2007 to 2016, when he ultimately filed for bankruptcy.

He does not have a record of violence, and his most serious legal trouble came in 1998 when he was arrested on charges of felony aggravated stalking. He ultimately pleaded no contest to misdemeanor harassing phone calls and received 30 days of jail work release and probation. In 2018 he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor stalking for calls to a South Florida woman and received a year of probation.

He was indicted with Alan Fischer III, of Tampa, and James Brett, of Clearwater, members of the Proud Boys, Zachary Johnson, of St. Petersburg and Brian Boele, of Lakeland. Investigators say he exchanged hundreds of texts with Steven “Sergeant” Miles, a Pasco County man also charged.

James Sheridan Brett IV

Bearded man wearing a green knit
Shutterstock

Demographics: 48, Republican, divorced, father, business owner

Residence: Clearwater (median household income $37,275)

Job: Runs a cleaning business

Charges: Felony civil disorder and other offenses

Pleaded: Not guilty, trial pending

Online slueths have given him the moniker #PavarottiPB — Pavarotti for his resemblance to the famous singer, PB for Proud Boy. He founded ClickExplosions.com, a marketing firm aimed at boosting the online presence of brands, according to his LinkedIn, but as of an October 2022 motion to allow him to attend a family camping trip, Brett’s lawyer states he “runs his own cleaning business.”

As of 2021 he was editor of the Dunedin Times, a free, local publication with the tagline, “All positive, all the time,” though it’s unclear if the newspaper is still publishing. Its website states, “We all have our political opinions in our personal time, but you will never see us partaking in political partisanship within our publications. We get that enough from mainstream media.”

Around 2004, he moved to Florida from Washington state and has moved around Pinellas County since. A divorce from his wife was finalized months before the Capitol riot.

In an online fundraising campaign through the site GiveSendGo that has raised $4,000, Brett said he woke up to dozens of law enforcement agents surrounding his home with a Bearcat armored vehicle parked on his lawn. In a video on the page, he appeared to get emotional describing his fiance and 1-year-old daughter exiting the house “at gunpoint.” His campaign states he is a father of five.

In May, Brett was indicted along with several suspected associates of the Proud Boys extremist group, including Alan Fischer III, of Tampa; Zachary Johnson, of St. Petersburg, Brian Boele, of Lakeland, and Dion Rajewski, of Largo. With Fischer, he flashed the OK hand sign deemed a white supremacist symbol by the anti defamation league in a group photo of Proud Boys wearing Proud Boys gear outside a Washington, D.C. bar in 2020.

Zachary David Johnson

Man in crowd wearing safety goggles and a baklava

Demographics: 34, no party affiliation, married, father, former business owner

Residence: Unincorporated St. Petersburg, near Pinellas Park (median household income $61,935)

Charges: Assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer using a dangerous weapon; other offenses

Pleaded: Not guilty, trial pending

Prior record: Felony drug possession in 2007, obtaining a controlled substance by fraud in 2011. Probation for both, but violated and served time in Pinellas County Jail and four months in Florida State Prison in 2016.

Johnson wears an ankle monitor while free on bond in Pinellas County, but received permission to spend time in Lakeland with his wife and child after the estranged couple reconciled following Johnson’s arrest.

Accused of using a sledgehammer and pepper spraying police, Johnson’s expletive-laden tirade about Joe Biden’s election was part of a montage played during a House Jan. 6 Committee hearing. His full quote was “I know exactly what's going on right now. Fake election. They think they're going to f—ing cheat us out of our vote, put communist f—kin biden in office. It ain't f—ing happening today buddy.”

Dubbed #gogglesman online for his protective eyewear, he wore a long sleeved camouflage shirt prosecutors said read “infidel” on one sleeve and “white” on the other.

Johnson’s occupation is unclear. He licensed Johnson Home Repair LLC in 2018 and has “Johnson Inc.” tattooed on his arm, Pinellas arrest records state.

He was indicted alongside Tampa’s Alan Fischer III and Clearwater’s James Brett, Proud Boys, Dion Rajewski, of Largo and Lakeland’s Brian Boele. A separate indictment of Steven Miles states Johnson marched to the Capitol with his group and Johnson texted Miles texted hundreds of times.

Carol Kicinski

Smiling woman with chin resting in hand
Federal Court documents

Demographics: 65, Republican, widowed, homeowner, business owner

Residence: Dunedin (median household income $56,278)

Job: Media, food and cosmetics entrepreneur

Charges: Misdemeanor disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; others

Pleaded: Not guilty, trial set for Dec. 5.

Headlines called Kicinski a “popular TV chef” after her arrest. The founder of Simply Gluten Free magazine was an occasional guest doing cooking demos on “Daytime,” a syndicated morning show shot at WFLA-TV in Tampa.

Kicinski, who also writes cookbooks, moved from California to Clearwater in the 1990s and has long been a Republican in Florida. She organized at least nine businesses in the state, though only makeup brand Beaute Minerals and Edgewater Park Media Inc., which recently was transferred to her adult son, remain active. With her late husband, Thomas Kicinski, she bought and sold several properties for a profit, though the couple filed for bankruptcy in 2007. She owns a waterfront home in Dunedin valued at more than $1 million.

Up until a few years ago, she had a personal web page touting the merits of Scientology.

Kicinski is accused of being inside the Capitol with Jon Heneghan, who lives in her home, per the FBI. They were arrested and charged together after agents said they used cell phone location data to place Heneghan inside the Capitol and spotted Kicinski wearing a blue Trump hat alongside him in closed circuit TV footage.

Jon Heneghan

Man in a dark t-shirt wearing a baseball cap
Indictment

Demographics: 58, no party affiliation, divorced, father, former business owner

Residence: Dunedin (median household income $56,278)

Job: Poker player

Charges: Misdemeanor disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building; others

Pleaded: Not guilty, trial set for Dec. 5.

In 2007 he purchased the historic “telephone building” in Clearwater with $611,015 in first-place winnings from the 2005 World Series of Poker.

That year, the Chicago native told Tampa Bay Informer, an obscure online news site, that he’d come to Clearwater for the Church of Scientology, which inspired him to invest in revitalizing downtown. He sold the renovated building in 2009, but court filings show foreclosures on properties and a bankruptcy over the next decade.

His Linkedin profiles list several jobs – recruiter and executive secretary for insurance companies, owner at Henneghan Automotive, which is not a registered business in Florida, and recruiter and vice president for Real Water, a Las Vegas-based bottling company that he also promoted on social media. Real Water ceased operations in 2021 after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration litigated dozens of cases of illness linked to its product.

Heneghan has continued to play in Texas Hold ‘em poker tournaments, and the site cardplayer.com lists his winnings, which have not approached his 2005 haul.

FBI agents used phone location data to place him inside the Capitol. Divorced twice, it was an ex-wife in Europe who confirmed to agents it was Henneghan in photos from Jan. 6. He was arrested and charged with Carol Kicinski, who lived with him. He was active on Twitter before deleting his tweets in August, posting mostly anti-vaccine and cryptocurrency content.

Paul Charles Rae

Law enforcement mugshot of a man
Pinellas County Sheriff

Demographics: 39, independent, father, business owner

Residence: Seminole (median household income $98,237)

Job: Runs King Laboratories Inc., a Tampa fuel testing company

Charges: Felony obstruction of an official proceeding and others

Pleaded: Not guilty. Awaiting trial.

Rae, who prosecutors say has self-identified as a Proud Boys extremist group member, once missed returning home by his pretrial curfew because his boat ran aground. That wasn’t his only boat-related mishap: Pinellas deputies charged Rae with misdemeanor boating under the influence last year after he ran his boat aground on a separate occasion. (He pleaded guilty to reckless operation of a boat.)

Rae entered the Capitol around 2:13 p.m., prosecutors allege, making him one of the first inside. He used a window smashed by another Proud Boy with a Capitol Police riot shield, charging documents say. Prosecutors allege Rae was near Proud Boys from multiple states, and he was charged alongside Orlando’s Arthur Jackman and three others.

Rae has deep roots in Tampa Bay. He appeared in the pages of the then-St. Petersburg Times at 5, turning the wheel of an interactive exhibit in a children’s museum in a photo. Rae has lived around Florida since, graduating from Lake Mary High near Orlando and earning his commercial pilot certificate. He settled in Pinellas County and has sons and a longtime partner.

After his arrest, Rae surrendered his pilot license and Transportation Workers Identification Credential – which allows access to restricted areas of U.S. maritime facilities and boats. A plea for donations online states that “makes it extremely difficult to fulfill his most basic duties” at work for the “primary bread-winner” of the family with “massive legal costs.”

But since his arrest, Rae has had more leeway than some of his fellow defendants. He’s allowed to leave his home and travel on his boat. In October 2022, a federal judge allowed him to attend a friend’s wedding in Las Vegas, despite prosecutors’ objections.

Steven Charles Miles

Mugshot of man in MAGA hat
Federal Court documents

Demographics: 39, Republican, homeowner, business owner, veteran

Residence: Clearwater (median household income $50,031)

Job: Adult content producer

Pleaded: Not guilty, trial pending

Charges: Felony assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer using a weapon; others

Miles produces and performs in adult content for which he charges a subscription fee. He is on home detention, and has continued to perform while wearing a GPS ankle monitor. He organized his production company, Sergeant Productions LLC in Nevada in 2020.

Previously residing in Oregon and Las Vegas, Miles purchased a four-bedroom manufactured home with chicken coops, an in-ground pool and a separate building that Miles has posted online about remodeling into a “dungeon” on five acres in Zephyrhills in August of 2021, shortly after his arrest. Seven months earlier, prosecutors allege he was at the Capitol wearing a “Trump 2020, F–k your feelings” shirt while shoving police officers and smashing a window with a wooden plank before entering the Senate wing.

Online, Miles describes himself as a “retired Army veteran with over two years in Iraq. I was shot in the leg on July 1, 2005, and retired in 2006."

Miles has a clean record other than an incident in Oregon in 2010 when he was charged with DUI and unlawful possession of a weapon, both misdemeanors. The FBI received a tip about Miles from a woman who posed for a photo with him on Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C. A separate indictment states that Pinellas County’s Zachary Johnson and Dion Rajewski also marched to the Capitol as part of Miles’ group, and exchanged hundreds of texts with Miles around Jan. 6.

MANATEE COUNTY

Joseph Hackett

Law enforcement mugshot of a man
Pinellas County Sheriff

Demographics: 52, homeowner, former business owner, married, father

Residence: Unincorporated Manatee County (median household income $69,245)

Job: Chiropractor

Charges: Felony seditious conspiracy; others

Pleaded: Not guilty, trial set for November

According to prosecutors, there is evidence Hackett attended planning meetings, trained for combat and may have stashed firearms in a D.C. hotel for use by an Oath Keepers “quick reaction force.”

The federal government alleges Hackett was a key planner for the Oath Keepers as members plotted their response to the results of the 2020 election. Nicknamed “Ahab” within that group, Hackett faces multiple felony charges in two separate criminal cases. He was allegedly part of the tactical “stack” formations of helmeted Oath Keepers that included Tampa’s Caleb Berry and Sarasota County’s Graydon Young, in which Oath Keepers moved in a line, each with their hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them. He is also named in a civil lawsuit brought by the District of Columbia against the Oath Keepers for damages to the Capitol building.

A licensed chiropractor for decades who has since let his license expire, Hackett’s wife said in an online fundraiser that his pretrial home confinement prevented him from working as a chiropractor in their wellness practice. She continued working there as a licensed acupuncturist, and briefly hosted a political podcast with Angel Harrelson, the wife of Kenneth Harrelson, a Titusville man also charged in the Oath Keepers conspiracy.

“I have a husband in jail because he was trying to preserve what the rest of my family have been fighting for since the beginning of this country,” Deena Hackett said in the first episode, which has since been taken down. “You know, before Joe got arrested, I was living in my bubble. I wasn't really paying attention. … I had no idea of any of the, like, the deep stuff that was going on. Now since Joe's been arrested it has been on my shoulders, left to me.”

Adam Christian Johnson

Mugshot of man in prisoner orange
Pinellas County Sheriff

Demographics: 37, Republican, married, homeowner, father

Residence: Parrish (median household income $79,608)

Job: Stay-at-home dad

Charges: Misdemeanor entering and remaining in a restricted building

Pleaded: Guilty. Sentenced to 75 days. Released

The photo of a smiling, waving Johnson lugging House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern is one of Jan. 6’s most memorable images.

Inside the Capitol he also posed with a sign reading, “Closed to all tours.” He put that on Facebook captioned: “No.” He later “jiggled” the door to Pelosi’s office suite as her staff sat barricaded inside, which prosecutors keyed in on. (Johnson later called it not a jiggle, but a “boop.”)

Johnson’s attorneys described him as a woodworker, practitioner of jiujitsu and devoted stay-at-home dad whose wife works as a family medicine doctor. “I’m not much of a political person,” he told an interviewer on YouTube a day before he reported to prison. He said he started following politics while movies, sports and other forms of entertainment were on pause during the pandemic.

Records show that before voting in 2020, he had not voted since the 2006 midterms. A registered Republican, he later described himself in that YouTube interview as a libertarian and said it was actually his first time ever voting for president. (He said he voted for Trump.)

Johnson said attorneys cost him $100,000. He and his wife mortgaged their home not long after his arrest. They lost friends, suffered public ridicule and saw her medical practice suffer, his attorneys wrote, and, “Because of the internet, these consequences will follow him for the rest of his life.” But following his release from prison, Johnson seemed to embrace his notoriety, posting as @LecternLeader on the social media site Gab.

“They blatantly stole it,” he said of the election in an interview posted there. Speaking about the crowd’s actions on Jan. 6, he said, “There are some things I really didn't like, and … there's some things I really did like.”

He said he thought it was OK to go inside, because he’d read it on the internet. The first people to tell him to leave that day, he said, were journalists from CNN. He compared Jan. 6 to protests in the summer of 2020, and agreed when the interviewer said there were no legal consequences for rioters at the George Floyd protests. In reality, thousands were arrested.

As part of his plea deal, Johnson said he signed an agreement to not discuss what he’d seen on surveillance tapes, but when a YouTube interviewer asked if they might “implicate some people who don’t want to be implicated,” Johnson sounded conspiratorially minded. “Whatever you think is on those tapes, is on those tapes.” He also agreed to turn over profits from any book he publishes for five years. Prosecutors insisted on that, he said, after learning he was writing a memoir.

Daniel Lyons Scott

Bearded man in sunglasses and Trump baseball cap
Court documents

Demographics: 29, not registered to vote in Florida, married, father

Residence: Englewood (median household income $40,375)

Job: Former Boeing employee

Charges: Felony assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers; others

Pleaded: Not guilty, awaiting trial

Known as Milkshake among the Proud Boys, Scott hosted a Proud Boys-focused streaming interview show called Milkshake Happy Hour.

News reports from Washington state say Scott worked for Boeing and lived in the Arlington, Washington, area on Jan. 6, 2021. He has since relocated to Florida with his wife and young children and was arrested in Englewood. He was indicted with a co-defendant, Christopher Worrell, of Naples.

Federal charging documents reference a video of Proud Boys marching on Jan. 6. An offscreen speaker says “Let’s take the f—ing Capitol.” Another man can then be heard saying , “Let’s not f—ing yell that, alright?” A proud boy leader remarks, “It was Milkshake, man, you know … idiot.”

Scott, wearing a God, Guns & Trump cap, a black ballistic vest and carrying goggles, appeared to be “one of the first, or perhaps the first,” person to confront law enforcement officers on the lower West Terrace, FBI investigators stated.

He is accused of pushing Capitol officers backwards up the steps, the federal complaint states, then pulling another officer into the crowd.

His interview show has not been active recently, though Milkshake Happy Hour has active accounts on Telegram, Youtube and Parler. A post to the Telegram channel after his arrest included an image of Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio edited to show him in a military uniform with a caption reading “My fuhrer.” Court filings state that he was able to find a steady job after his arrest. He briefly had a fundraising campaign online, but it was removed.

Scott is also named in a civil lawsuit brought by Washington, D.C. against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for damages to the nation’s capital to be determined at trial.

POLK COUNTY

Jonathan Daniel Pollock

Beaded man with wild hair, yelling
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

Demographics: 23, Republican

Residence: Kathleen, near Lakeland (median household income $58,997)

Job: Welder and ironworker

Charges: Felony assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a weapon; others

Pleaded: Remains a fugitive

Considered armed and dangerous, the FBI in 2022 doubled a reward for information leading to Pollock’s capture to $30,000. The feds say he’s “believed to have friends and family throughout Central Florida and north Florida, as well as Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas,” and may be working as a welder or in construction.

Pollock, in a ballistic vest, knee pads and gloves with plastic knuckles, is accused of shouting “Let’s go” while fighting Capitol police, punching an officer in the head, pushing a fallen officer into the ground and pulling another down a set of steps while wrestling away a plastic shield. The FBI says Pollock appears on video striking officers with it. His patches that day included the skull logo from Marvel’s “The Punisher” and read, “In God we trust.”

Pollock’s former co-worker told the FBI Pollock showed off photos from Jan. 6 on his phone after returning, but later left work claiming a family emergency and never came back.

Pollock had no criminal record before Jan. 6. He voted for the first time in 2020. He traveled to Washington with older sister Olivia Pollock, who is awaiting trial, and their father, Ben Pollock, who was not charged with any crimes. Joshua Doolin, a cousin, Michael Perkins and Joseph Hutchinson III, all from Tampa Bay, were also charged together, but Jonathan Pollock is accused of being the most violent of the group and faces up to 40 years.

Olivia Michele Pollock

A woman wearing a green headband
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

Demographics: 31, Constitution Party of Florida, former business owner

Residence: Kathleen, near Lakeland (median household income $58,997)

Charges: Felony physical violence in a restricted building or grounds; others

Pleaded: Not guilty. Trial set for March 6, 2023.

Accused of trying to strip an officer of his baton, Pollock was arrested in an early morning raid on the rural property where generations of her family live near Lakeland. She told independent journalist Tracey Eaton she sleeps in a converted van (“because I like to travel”) on the former orange grove where she has lived her entire life and was homeschooled.

Growing up, her family grew its food and visited nursing homes to play music for the residents.

Pollock is registered with the Constitution Party, which says it “seeks to restore the Constitutional Republic and American jurisprudence to its Biblical and Common Law origins.” She’d been to a Tea Party rally years ago, but was “not much of a protester” until Jan. 6, when she felt compelled to stand against voter fraud, she said. (Trump’s claims of a stolen election have been debunked.). “It’s not Trump or Biden,” she told Eaton. “Democrats and Republicans alike should be worried.”

Her brother Gabe Pollock and father, Ben Pollock, – who runs a pest control business and is CEO of owner of Rapture Guns and Knives in Lakeland – have accused the government of instigating violence at the Capitol, and suggested their family was being persecuted as conservative Christian gun proponents, according to the Lakeland Ledger. The Ledger wrote in June that a sign reading “free the political prisoners” appeared on the family’s property after her arrest. Ben Pollock, who has not been charged, told traceyeaton.com that after returning from the Capitol, “I told everybody, I said, ‘I don’t have an unclear conscience.”

Olivia Pollock incorporated a business called Color Rain LLC in Jan. 2020, but it is now inactive. She is also accused of elbowing an officer in the chest.

Joshua Christopher Doolin

Man in a crowd wearing a baseball cap
Joshua Christopher Doolin

Demographics: 24, Republican, married, father

Residence: Kathleen, near Lakeland (median household income $58,997)

Job: Former fire rescue EMT, now a delivery driver

Charges: Felony civil disorder

Pleaded: Not guilty, trial scheduled for March 6, 2023

Doolin became a firefighter with Polk County Fire Rescue a month before his arrest. He was fired. Since then, he drives a delivery truck at night.

He was charged with his cousins Olivia Pollock, who is awaiting trial, and Jonathan Pollock, a fugitive. All are lifelong residents of the Kathleen area in unincorporated Polk County.

Doolin texted a coworker on Jan. 6, 2021 – Doolin’s birthday – to say, “Trump should be coming up any minute! Then to the Capital!” When the person responded, “Don’t get killed on your birthday bro!” Doolin wrote back, “I wouldn’t mind dying with my family storming the capital on my birthday!” To the Tampa Bay Times, he insisted it was a sarcastic, “ridiculous” joke, and that he’d never expected to go to the Capitol, and only first heard anyone was thinking of protesting there that same morning.

“I did feel like I was seeing enough that it needed to be looked into,” Doolin said about rumors of fraud in the 2020 election. “I saw it on smaller news sites and sometimes friends would send me things.”

He married Morgan Ainsley Murdock four months after Jan. 6. Another co-defendant, Joseph Hutchinson III, served as best man. The couple had their first child a year after his arrest.

“I can’t get on with my life. You can’t plan for anything, even a new career, with this hanging over my head,” he said. “They say the first year of marriage is the hardest, but this is crazy.”

Doolin told the Times he was arrested at the fire station where his chief assigned him overtime so the FBI would know his location. In an interview with conservative media site frankspeech.com, his wife criticized FBI agents for raiding friends’ and family members’ homes at 5 a.m. with “50 agents,” pointing lasers at them and tranquilizing a dog. She also said the FBI returned to her home six months later and pointed weapons at her and Doolin during a search. A search of their home turned up a rifle – forbidden by the terms of Doolin’s pretrial release – but a judge was convinced that Doolin did not realize his wife had stored the unloaded gun, a gift from a relative still in the box, in a bedroom he does not go in. He was not punished.

He is accused of carrying zip ties, pointing a flagpole at officers, taking a canister of chemical spray and encouraging other rioters to move toward the entrance. Doolin told the Times that he found the zip ties and canister on the ground and picked them up, “because you can always use zip ties,” adding that he handed the canister off to a police officer as he left the area.

Joseph Daniel Hutchinson III

Bearded man in capitol assault crowd wearing a bulletproof shield

Demographics: 26, Republican, former business owner

Residence: Kathleen, near Lakeland (median household income $48,299)

Job: Worked at Pollock family gun shop, now works at father’s used merchandise store

Charges: Felony civil disorder; others

Pleaded: Not guilty, awaiting trial

Hutchinson, who grew up in the Lakeland area, moved to Albany, Georgia shortly after Jan. 6, 2021 and was arrested there. He previously worked at the Pollock family’s Rapture Guns & Knives.

He is accused of being part of a group that fought with police for hours, including his co-defendant and best friend Joshua Doolin and Doolin’s cousins Olivia and Jonathan Pollock. Hutchinson has been on home detention in Georgia since his arrest, but has successfully petitioned the court to allow him to travel to Lakeland to celebrate his birthday, holiday parties at the Pollock family’s home and Doolin’s wedding, where he served as best man.

Most recently he asked the court to take him off home detention so he can take a better paying job as a driver who escorts tractor trailers hauling large loads across multiple states. His lawyer wrote that he wants to have more money to pay restitution and for his prison commissary if convicted. Prosecutors argued against the request, stating that it could allow Hutchinson to help his co-defendant Jonathan Pollock, who remains a fugitive.

Hutchinson previously organized Hutchinson Lawn Service as a business in Florida. He has voted in every general election since turning 18, when he registered as a Republican, but does not post about politics on his public Facebook page.

Corinne Montoni

Woman in a crowd smiles toward the camera
Federal Court documents

Demographics: 33, Republican

Residence: Lakeland (median household income $99,743)

Job: Rock band manager, freelance graphic designer

Charges: Felony obstructing an official proceeding; others

Pleaded: No plea yet.

Montoni was an honor roll student at her Connecticut high school. She moved to Florida about a decade ago, and there’s no indication she ever got into any trouble with the law before Jan. 6, 2021.

Incensed by Biden’s victory, Montoni began planning her trip to Washington, D.C,. in mid-December, according to court documents. She wrote to a friend, “Trump called us to dc jan 6th.” An early adopter of the social media site Parler and avid user of Facebook, when the day arrived, she recorded videos of herself marching in the Capitol. When the madness died down, she posted the footage along with messages such as “Insurrection is coming. Hold the line. Stay vigilant,” and “We tried going to the courts. We tried showing evidence. We tried the nice and legal way but when corruption runs so deep for so long, that doesn't work. … We broke a few windows, sure but we were a peaceful protest … .”

She deleted her Facebook account within 10 hours, a witness told the FBI.

HERNANDO COUNTY

Audrey A. Southard-Rumsey

Selfie of a woman in a green sweater and blue stocking cap
U.S. Court records

Demographics: 53, Republican, mother, divorced, business owner

Residence: Spring Hill in Weeki Wachee Acres (median household income $34,132)

Job: Voice coach

Charges: Felony obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting; others

Pleaded: Not guilty. Trial set for Jan. 19, 2023.

Southard-Rumsey is an award-winning opera singer, who for the past decade has garnered good reviews for her work with children as a voice and piano teacher.

On Jan. 6, she broadcasted live over social media from Washington, D.C.: “Standing in front of the Capitol Building ready to take it. …It’s gonna be fun.” But it was the video others took of her inside the building shouting at officers, “Tell f---king Pelosi we’re coming for her! … We’re coming for all of you!,” that went viral. That video was referenced in a federal complaint accusing her of using a flagpole to shove an officer backwards through a set of doors until he fell and hit his head on a statue. “Alright push in here;,” she yelled to other protesters. “You ready to go again?”

An FBI agent looking into Jan. 6 recognized Southard-Rumsey from prior protests appearances in Florida, the complaint says. Locals recognized her, too — as the woman who’d yelled with a powerful voice while counter-protesting Black Lives Matter in Pasco County, sometimes wearing a Jason mask.

The California native grew up loving opera music and went on to perform at Carnegie Hall, and with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, the Encore Chorus at Disney World, Sonoma Opera Company and New Century Opera.

A former friend who met her while performing in a community theater production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat told the Tampa Bay Times in 2021 that Southard-Rumsey was “very effervescent, very passionate,” with strong family values, but that she became openly political late in President Barack Obama’s first term, latching onto the false idea that Obama was not born in the U.S.

SARASOTA COUNTY

Graydon Paul Young

Jail mugshot of man wearing orange
Pinellas County Sheriff

Demographics: 56, Republican, homeowner, married, grandfather, business owner, veteran

Residence: Englewood, southern Sarasota County (median household income $56,593)

Job: Day care owner

Charges: Felony conspiracy and obstruction of Congress

Pleaded: Guilty. Agreed to cooperate. Sentence pending.

Young was the second Oath Keeper to agree to cooperate with the government against the right-wing militia group.

Young admitted to conspiring via encrypted messages with other Oath Keepers to disrupt the electoral proceedings on Jan. 6, and to being in a group that pushed officers. Sentencing guidelines call for Young to serve five to six years with a $25,000 to $250,000 fine, though cooperation could cut that.

He was denied bond initially, but pleaded for release. “Since he has no previous experience with the criminal justice system, being detained is taking an extremely high toll on his mental well-being,” his lawyer successfully argued. “Because he is such a strong family man, locking him up away from his wife and children with the prospect of an extremely long period of time before trial is even scheduled is causing potentially irreparable psychological and emotional damage.”

Young moved from California decades ago. The father and grandfather runs Young Children's Academy with his wife. It earns them about $10,800 monthly, alongside modest income from rental properties, records state, but Young recently filed for bankruptcy. Among his creditors: private defense attorneys.

The Army and Navy reserve veteran joined Oath Keepers in December 2020. Prosecutors said he inquired with combat trainers about a rifle class for a group that month, circulated recruitment emails and brought along his sister – former police officer Laura Steele – who is also charged.

Young admitted to climbing the Capitol steps in one of the tactical “stack” formations said to include Sarasota’s Joseph Hackett and Dunnellon’s Kelly Meggs, both charged with seditious conspiracy alongside national leader Stewart Rhodes. Young could testify in that trial and others, as could Tampa’s Caleb Berry, another cooperating Oath Keeper who admitted he was in the formation.

Young believed he was in D.C., his attorney said previously, for a “righteous cause,” and later realized “he had been duped by an organization he didn’t fully understand.”

Methodology

Reporters tried to capture where each individual lived as of Jan. 6, 2021. As a result, some of these individuals are listed as living in a county where they may no longer currently reside. Median household income estimates come from census tract breakdowns courtesy of censusreporter.org, an independent journalism project. The estimates are imprecise, the site notes. Each tract’s median household income may be higher or lower by thousands of dollars. Other information is based on charging documents, public records, online research and interviews with the defendants themselves or their associates.