A Lebanon man has been charged with storming police trying to protect the Capitol building on Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C.
Kyle Fitzsimons, 37, was arrested Thursday in Maine, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Portland.
He is the first Maine resident to be charged in connection with the riot.
Fitzsimons allegedly twice charged at a line of Metropolitan Police Department officers who managed to fight him off. One struck Fitzsimons on the head with a baton, according to the FBI’s affidavit filed in federal court.
Fitzsimons never got inside the Capitol but was taken to a local hospital where he received six stitches to close his head wound.
He is charged with four federal crimes: knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, violent entry and disorderly conduct on U.S. Capitol grounds, assault on a federal officer and attempting to obstruct law enforcement during a civil disorder. A civil disorder can be the obstruction of any “federally protected function,” including Congress’ Jan. 6 counting of the electoral votes from November’s election, according to the affidavit.
Fitzsimons’ first court appearance has not been set.
He allegedly admitted to attending the events at the Capitol during a Zoom meeting of the Lebanon Town Council on Jan. 7. Fitzsimons also gave an interview to the Rochester Voice, an online newspaper in New Hampshire.
Fitzsimons said that he attended a rally in the morning when then-President Donald Trump urged his supporters to keep working to overturn the election results that determined President Joe Biden had won the election.
“The speeches from the morning were overtly preaching the election was not over, there was a path to victory through decertification, there was a plan to delay the certification by the House and Senate and then state legislatures would convene and (certify) the right result,” Fitzsimons told the paper.
Fitzsimons also allegedly posted or asked to have messages posted to the Lebanon Maine Truth Seekers Facebook page. A notice on Dec. 24 said he was going to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. He asked for others to join him, the affidavit said.
The Facebook post also said: “I have seen the flags. I know there are supporters of Mr. Trump in town. I’m also seeing flags that the election was stolen and we are being slow walked towards Chinese ownership by an establishment that is treasonous and all too willing to gaslight the public into believing the theft was somehow the will of the people.”
Once Fitzsimons appears before a judge in Maine the case will be transferred to Washington, D.C.
According to information compiled by George Washington University, 158 men and 23 women had been charged in the attack as of Thursday. Fitzsimmons and Brian P. McCreary, 33, of North Adams, Massachusetts, who also was arrested Thursday, are not included in that tally.
If convicted, Fitzsimons faces up to eight years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on the most serious charge of assault on an officer.