A federal grand jury has indicted a Lebanon man on 10 charges stemming from the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol, including causing injury to two different police officers.
Kyle Fitzsimons, 37, is being held in a federal detention center in Rhode Island and is expected to be moved to Washington, D.C., in the next week or two to face prosecution there, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals said. He is the only Mainer among the more than 300 people who have been charged in connection with the insurrection.
The FBI released this photograph of Kyle Fitzsimons during the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6 as part of court documents charging him with assaulting a federal police officer among other charges. The image is taken from a security camera at the Capitol. Federal court documents
Fitzsimons was arrested last month on four federal charges and held at the Cumberland County Jail in Portland before being moved to the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, Rhode Island. He waived his right to argue bail until he was transferred.
The indictment signed by Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin from the District of Columbia reveals little new information about the case against Fitzsimons but increases the number of charges against him, including an additional charge involving a second police officer.
Five people died as a result of the violence, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. The officer was killed while defending the Capitol from the mob of white supremacists, far right extremists and Trump supporters.
The original four charges included: assault on a federal police officer, knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building without lawful authority, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and attempting to obstruct law enforcement during a civil disorder.
The grand jury indicted him last month on 10 charges: obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings, two counts of civil disorder and two counts of inflicting bodily injury on certain officers.
Those officers are not named in the indictment, but one is “Sergeant A.G.” from the U.S. Capitol Police and the other is “Detective P.N.” from the Metropolitan Police Department. The extent of their alleged injuries is also not included.
Fitzsimons declined an interview request when he was arrested in February and additional efforts to seek an interview have been unsuccessful. A defense attorney who represented him at his hearings in Maine said last week that he did not have the authority to agree to an interview, and it is not clear whether Fitzsimons has yet been appointed a defense attorney in the District of Columbia.
But court documents and newspaper articles include some details about his life and his views. And before his arrest, Fitzsimons spoke openly to a New Hampshire newspaper and Lebanon elected officials about his experience at the riot.
An affidavit included a social media post in which he repeated the baseless view that Trump lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud and offered to lead a caravan to Washington to challenge the election results on Jan. 6.
“If a call went out for able bodies, would there be an answer?” read a December Facebook post signed with the name “Kyle Fitzsimons.”
That document included screenshots from surveillance and police body cameras that allegedly show Fitzsimons at the front of the group of rioters. It said he was observed “pushing and grabbing against officers, who were holding a police line in an arched entranceway on the lower west terrace of the Capitol Building.” When he was hit by officers’ batons, Fitzsimons lowered his shoulder and charged the line of police, the affidavit said. He retreated into the crowd after scuffling with officers. The affidavit does not say Fitzsimons ever entered the building itself, as other participants did.
In the days following the riot, Fitzsimons called into the Lebanon Board of Selectmen and spoke to the Rochester Voice newspaper. He told both that he expected the event to be a peaceful one. He described wearing a “costume” – his white butcher jacket – and he told the newspaper that he carried an unstrung bow as a sign of peace. He also told them he was injured by a police officer’s baton to his head and needed six stitches at a nearby hospital.
“The march was, in my belief, to demonstrate that Trump, a lion, was leading an army of lambs to change the corrupt fraud that had been perpetuated,” he said during the Lebanon meeting.
It is not clear how long Fitzsimons has lived in Maine. In 2018, he testified at the Maine Legislature during a public hearing about a job training bill for immigrants, saying he moved to the state from Rhode Island and New York to get away from “multicultural hell holes.” He expressed anti-immigrant views and highlighted the “white laborers” on the Maine flag. The testimony was reported by the Free Press at the time and the Mainer magazine posted a video clip from that hearing last month.
“You’re bringing in the new third world,” Fitzsimons told legislators. “You’re bringing in the replacements.”
Court documents indicated he worked as a butcher at Hannaford in York, but a spokeswoman has said that he is no longer employed there. Two unnamed sources described Fitzsimons to federal investigators as vocal about his political beliefs and firearms, and one said they believed Fitzsimons holds racist beliefs, although the affidavit didn’t elaborate.
During the two court hearings in Maine, Fitzsimons only spoke to answer the judge’s questions. Federal rules required that he make his first court appearance in the district where he was arrested, but the case was already expected to be transferred to the District of Columbia, where he is charged.
In a separate case, Portland police said that they believed Fitzsimons was the person who left a suspicious package at the Portland Museum of Art on Jan. 23. The package did not contain an explosive device. Cumberland County District Attorney Jonathan Sahrbeck later announced he would not file criminal charges related to that incident due to “insufficient evidence of criminal conduct.”
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