Left: Zylas “Zee” Hamilton circled in yellow in Department of Justice exhibits. Right: Closed-circuit footage from inside the U.S. Capitol obtained by investigators and included in Hamilton’s statement of offense show him entering the Capitol around 2:22 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021.
A Georgia man who boasted online after Jan. 6, 2021, about rushing police at the Capitol and declared that he would “die or do 20 years” before his children grew up in a country “these people are trying to create,” has entered a guilty plea.
Zylas “Zee” Hamilton pleaded guilty to two counts of his four-count indictment including disorderly and disruptive conduct in a Capitol building or grounds and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building. A count of knowingly entering the building and one other disorderly conduct charge will be dropped as a result of this plea.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the braggadocio that Hamilton littered social media with, along with photos and videos of his foray inside the Capitol, helped lead to his arrest.
The FBI said it received a tip just days after Jan. 6 that showed a screenshot between Hamilton and another Facebook user where he admitted to being in the Capitol building. He went on to say in the chat that he “rushed” police, causing him to be “maced, tear gassed and shot with a rubber bullet in the shoulder.”
In his plea with federal prosecutors, Hamilton admits that he entered the Capitol through a Senate wing door “while a blaring alarm sounded” and that he understood he wasn’t supposed to be there. He walked through the Capitol’s first floor, went through the Crypt and stayed inside for 14 minutes. He obscured his face and ultimately exited through a Senate wing door after climbing through a broken window.
HIs plea is mum regarding earlier claims of his bravado online in the immediate wake of the attack but prosecutors did have Hamilton admit in his plea that after Jan. 6, he wrote on Facebook: “I was in the capital building” and “[w]e got in and made our statement.”
He admitted to posting a photo of himself online inside the Capitol with the caption: “Fight for your country folks … we took our capitol back today[.]”
On Jan. 8, phone records showed Hamilton telling someone he would “die or do 20 years before my kids grow up in the country these people are trying to [create]” and all that had happened that day was a window being broken.
He wrote: “Honestly, a window was broken. We could have burnt that place to the ground.”
Department of Justice exhibits contained inside a statement of offense for accused rioter Zylas “Zee” Hamilton show alleged messages he posted on social media proclaiming he was inside of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump, he continued in the January 2021 Facebook message, “didn’t promote the violence or condone it.”
“We made that decision ourselves,” Hamilton wrote.
He will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, this August. Hamilton faces up to six months in prison with five years of probation.
The Justice Department has arrested over 1,400 people across the United States for charges related to the attack on the Capitol, according to a May 4 update.
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