A Capitol riot may be planning a dubious international escape after the Jan. 6 siege.
Ethan Nordean, a leader of the far-right white supremacist organization Proud Boys, obtained a valid U.S. passport issued to someone who looked like him and kept it close to his bed with his wife’s passport, new court documents said.
In a pre-trial detention proceeding on Monday for Nordean, prosecutors detailed the months-long tactical preparations that members of the Proud Boys made before the attack on the Capitol earlier this year.
Nordean helped plan and raise funds for the group’s role in the Capitol insurrection, which began on November 4, the lawsuit said.
After Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was arrested in Washington days before the siege, the organization appointed Nordean to take “final leadership” of the group’s activities on the day of the attack and granted him “powers of war”, they said. prosecutors.
The night before the attack, prosecutors said the Seattle-based leader instructed his fellow Proud Boys to wear dark clothes and avoid the colors typically associated with members of the extremist group.
On the day of the disturbances, Nordean, dressed all in black and wearing a tactical vest, instructed his companions to use encrypted communications and the military-style equipment they had acquired. He then issued specific orders: “Divide into groups, try to break into the Capitol building from as many different points as possible and prevent the Joint Congressional Session from certifying the results of the Electoral College,” prosecutors said.
The 30-year-old was arrested weeks later, on February 3, for his role in planning and participating in the deadly attacks.
But Monday’s court documents reveal new details about Nordean’s pre-siege planning and post-siege arrest.
Prosecutors allege that law enforcement officials discovered a valid American passport issued to a Nordic look-alike while executing a search warrant. Federal agents reportedly found the passport on a dresser on the Nordean side of the bed in the master bedroom, along with Nordean’s wife’s passport.
The authorities found no Nordean passports during the search.
Prosecutors described the “obvious explanation” for the dubious passport – that Nordean “considered at least the possibility of traveling with the passport after leading a group of members of the Proud Boys in the Capitol riot, and after several of the members of the Proud Boys. who followed their lead were arrested by the FBI … “
Instead, Nordean offered his own explanation for the document.
The Proud Boys leader told agents that the passport belonged to his wife’s ex-boyfriend and that she kept the document as a “souvenir” after the relationship ended. His wife then allegedly took the passport as a souvenir with her when she moved into a new home with her husband, Nordean, and she “by chance” kept the passport with her own passport “on top of a dresser. [Nordean’s] side of the bed in the master bedroom. ”
Prosecutors argued in the lawsuit that the anecdote proves that Nordean is a serious risk of escape and “danger to the community” and, as such, should be detained before his trial.
“As noted earlier, it should [Nordean] obtaining his release and acquiring another passport, it would be extremely difficult to arrest him and guarantee his presence for the trial “, states the document.