George Gonzalez (U.S. Attorney’s Office).
Federal agents have arrested a Florida man who authorities said was caught on camera breaking windows and clashing with cops guarding the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6 — and denied that he was there and that he was the person in a picture showed to him by the FBI.
George Gonzalez, 46, is charged with assaulting officers, obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder, destruction of government property, trespassing and disorderly conduct, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release. He was seen on video entering Capitol grounds that day through the West Front of the building, officials said. He allegedly broke a window to get into the building and confronted police inside, court documents said.
He went into the building again later by allegedly breaking a windowpane and climbing through. Inside, Gonzalez allegedly joined other rioters at the Crypt and charged at a police line but was pushed back by officers. He allegedly charged again, with the crowd eventually overwhelming police, pushing further into the building.
Gonzalez and other rioters forced police back past the House Wing Door and through the Hall of Columns, authorities said. Then, he allegedly went upstairs to the second floor and hung around the Statuary Hall Connector, which leads to the House of Representatives floor, for about eight minutes before he was escorted out by police, ending his 42-minute jaunt inside the Capitol building.
In an interview on May 14, 2024, Gonzalez claimed to an FBI agent that he could not recall whether he was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and denied that it was him in photo “AFO-479,” a picture seeking a Jan. 6 individual involved in the riots that the agent showed him.
“By way of explanation, he said that he lived in the Baltimore area at the time and sometimes conducted business in Washington, D.C.,” court documents said. “When shown photos of AFO-479 and asked if the person depicted was him, Gonzalez said it was not him. He conceded that the person pictured looked like him, but insisted it was not him.”
“I believe Gonzalez’s claim that he could not remember whether he was in D.C. on January 6, and his denial that he is the person shown in the pictures as AFO-479, were untrue,” the agent added.
Gonzalez was not the only accused rioter who allegedly smashed windows at the Capitol that day. As Law&Crime previously reported, Dominic Pezzola, a member of the Proud Boys extremist group, was sentenced to a decade behind bars after using a stolen riot shield to smash a window of the Capitol building that day. Another rioter who smashed a Capitol window with a metal tomahawk ax got seven years in prison.
The post Man seen on video at U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 told investigators he wasn’t actually there that day: Feds first appeared on Law & Crime.
