An alleged Three Percenter, who is accused of violating the Capitol, will remain in prison awaiting his trial after his own family members gave officers information that led to his arrest, CNN reported on Monday.
Guy Reffitt, a husband and father from Texas, drove to Washington, DC, to attend the pro-Trump rally on January 6 armed with an AR-15 rifle and pistol, threatened his family, boasted of his participation and he boasted to other militia members that the siege was only “the beginning,” according to court documents.
Days after returning from his trip to the nation’s capital, Reffitt told his children that he knew the FBI was “watching him”. On January 11, he told his 18-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter that he should “erase everything”, referring to video evidence of his presence, according to legal records.
Reffitt told his son, Jackson, that if he crossed the line and reported his father to the police, Reffitt would have no choice but to “do what he had to do,” Jackson told investigators. When Jackson asked his father if he was threatening him, Reffitt would have responded by saying, “Don’t put words in my mouth,” said the statement.
Reffitt also threatened his daughter, according to court documents. The girl was using her cell phone to talk to friends when Reffitt told her that if she was recording him or posting anything about him on social media, she would have “crossed the line, betrayed the family” and he “put a bullet in her” “phone, according to the statement.
That same day, the two sons – who disapproved of their father’s pro-Trump policy – told their mother, Nicole, that Reffitt had threatened them. When confronted by his wife, Reffitt reportedly doubled his warnings, saying that if his children reported him they would be traitors and “traitors would be shot,” court documents say.
Reffitt’s wife and son told FBI officials all this and more when agents arrived at Wylie’s home on January 16 to execute a search warrant and eventually arrest Reffitt, according to legal records.
Jackson has since left the family home and is now living in an undisclosed location, according to court documents. The son previously told CNN that he warned the FBI about his father.
But despite detailing Reffitt’s post-siege behavior to investigators, family members continued to support the patriarch in court and in the media.
Nicole told CNN that Reffitt is a “loving husband and dedicated father, loyal friend and passionate patriot”. She insisted that his statements were taken out of context and said that no one ever felt that they were in real danger.
The couple’s youngest daughter and her boyfriend testified on behalf of Reffitt in court on Monday. Although she told the judge that she thought Reffitt had tried to intimidate her and her brother, her daughter said she did not believe he would be dangerous if he were released, CNN reported.
Reffitt’s lawyer also downplayed his client’s threats while defending his release before the trial.
US magistrate judge Zia Faruqui rejected Reffitt’s request for release because of prosecutors’ allegations that Reffitt had worn armor, a helmet, a firearm and flexible plastic handcuffs on the Capitol grounds, according to The Washington Post.
Faruqui said Reffitt used encrypted communications with another three percent before and after the attack and planned violence.
Insider contacted Reffitt’s defense attorney for comment.
The Three Percenters, a far-right anti-government group for which Reffitt said he conducted verification and intelligence, formed in 2008, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Its name comes from the myth that only 3% of the colonists took up arms during the Revolutionary War. The members see themselves as “modern versions of those revolutionaries who fight against the tyrannical government of the United States, and not against the British”.
When Faruqui read his decision, it caused a “scream” from Reffitt’s wife, daughter and boyfriend, CNN reported.
Despite his support for Reffitt, it was at least the third time that members of his family gave details of his actions to the authorities.