The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a $15,000 reward for information on the whereabouts of a Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot defendant who is facing charges of assault on multiple police officers.
Authorities said that they have been trying to arrest the fugitive since June and identified him as Jonathan Daniel Pollock. The suspect is one of a group of Floridians who allegedly attacked police and also face charges of theft of government property and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Capitol Hill Riot
The suspect is only one of a small group of people who are trying to avoid law enforcement personnel after being charged for their involvement in the Capitol Hill insurrection. Court documents showed that Pollock took several weeks off of his job and traveled to D.C. sometime around Jan. 6, 2021
Pollock's coworkers said that when the suspect returned, he initially bragged about his attendance and involvement in the insurrection. However, a few days later, he said that he had a family emergency, left, and never returned to work, as per CNN.
When one of the suspect's coworkers visited his house, prosecutors said that it was Pollock's father who answered the door, returned his son's office keys, and said that he had no knowledge of where the defendant had gone.
Prosecutors have accused Pollock of brutally punching two police officers in the face, kneeling another personnel, dragging one more down a flight of stairs, charging at police officers with a flag pole, grabbing a personnel's neck and pinning him to the ground, and ramming a police shield into a personnel's neck.
According to ClickOrlando, FBI Tampa Acting Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani said in a news release that the agency has been trying to locate and arrest Pollock since last summer. He noted that the charges against the suspect will not be going away and must be dealt with, arguing that the FBI was determined to bring the felon to justice.
Jan. 6 Defendants
The situation comes as U.S. authorities are continuing their crackdown of Jan. 6 rioters, with one suspect, identified as 49-year-old Guy Wesley Reffitt of Texas, who was found guilty of five criminal charges.
The list includes transporting a firearm in furtherance of a civil disorder; obstruction of an official proceeding; entering or remaining in a restricted area or grounds with a firearm; obstructing officers during a civil disorder, and obstruction of justice-hindering communication through force or threat of physical force.
A jury made up of Washington, D.C. residents took two days of deliberation to hand out their verdict on the suspect. Many of the potential jurors said that they either lived or worked near the Capitol building or had relationships with police officers in the area who were injured by the chaotic crowd.
Judge Dabney Friedrich, in selecting jurors, looked for individuals who could keep an "open mind" despite previous reports about the incident. The final group of jurors included employees from NASA and the Department of Defense, as well as a public school maintenance supervisor, NPR reported.
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