Andrew Alan Hernandez was going to work on Thursday when he was stopped by the FBI.
Hernandez, a 44-year-old resident of Jurupa Valley, California, was promptly arrested by agents, facing charges of obstruction of justice, entering a “restricted building or land” without legal authority and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol Hill in January 6.
He appeared at the US District Court in Riverside on Thursday, reported Southern California News Group, who first broke the news.
According to a complaint made by an FBI agent, the agency was warned by Hernandez’s manager at his workplace – who remains unidentified – who saw him wearing “the company’s shirt and cap” in a photo. That photo was published in the New York Times Magazine on January 14, almost a week after the riots.
He was later fired for “misrepresenting the company in illegal activities”, in a case reminiscent of an employee of a Maryland marketing firm who wore a badge during the Capitol riots.
The FBI corroborated the manager’s claim by comparing the photograph of a driver’s license with the published ones.
Publicly available footage shows him screaming inside the Capitol, while holding an American flag with a connected GoPro camera.
His presence on social media, including a Twitter and YouTube allegedly linked to him. it also indicates someone interested in a litany of unmasked conspiracy theories, most notably QAnon, electoral fraud and unmasked health conspiracies. A Twitter account allegedly owned by Hernandez uses a QAnon logo as a header.
“They are trying to steal the vote and will perfect and protect their fraudulent voting system when they are in power … You will have a tyrannical dictatorship.” a tweet read.
Another tweet, according to the Southern California News Group, invoked a common cry from QAnon.
Hernandez was released on $ 50,000 bail on Friday morning, an FBI spokesman told SFGATE, but will appear in court next Thursday.