WASHINGTON (CN) — A Los Angeleno who smoked weed inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in stars-and-stripes-patterned pants accepted a plea deal Thursday that will likely give him no time in jail.
Eduardo Nicholas Alvear Gonzalez, also known as Nick Alvear, “Lion Nick” or the “Capitol Rotunda Doobie Smoker,” used the videoconferencing program Zoom on Jan. 7 to screen share multiple photographs and videos from a folder on his laptop that he titled “Capitol Storming,” which, true to that name, showed his participation at the Capitol riot a day earlier.
“Here it is, me blazing up at the Capitol. Mary Jane,” Gonzalez narrates. Over an hour in length, the recording includes explanations from Gonzalez that he had already smoked three joints at Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally earlier in the day, and then discovered that he still had eight left when he went into the Rotunda — some of which he handed out to fellow rioters.
“Time to smoke weed in here,” the 33-year-old Gonzalez exclaims at one point. Later he hands his camera to another rioter to record him lighting a pipe. Another segment of the video shows him sipping from a can.
But though Gonzalez’s marijuana smoking was documented extensively in his Zoom video and in multiple FBI statements against Gonzalez, prosecutors did not mention it during his plea agreement hearing on Thursday.
Gonzalez pleaded guilty to one court of parading, demonstrating or picketing at the Capitol — a misdemeanor offense that holds a maximum prison sentence of six months. So far, sentencing determinations for those who accepted the same plea have not included any jail time.
Gonzalez was born in Venezuela and a year old when he came to the United States. He frequently posts conspiracy-theory videos to YouTube, telling viewers that we may be living in a simulation, that the earth is flat and that the Smithsonian Institution is hiding evidence of giants. He also promotes the QAnon conspiracy theory that elites are operating a Satanic child sex-trafficking cult and sacrificing children.
“He's fallen under the sway of a web of conspiracy theories that is not just bizarre but dangerous,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Bosse said at Gonzalez’s detention hearing in March.
In February, Gonzalez livestreamed a YouTube video called “Smoking with brotunda” from his friend’s house in Virginia Beach, in which he talked about hiding in the closet when a police officer came over earlier that day. The individual joining him on the video told him he needed a “bolt hole,” or hideaway, to which Gonzalez replied that he already had one.
“We are here now. We are alive and safe,” Gonzalez said on the video. “I think the whole riot is going to be safe, like, we’ll be good, absolutely… I’m out of weed.”
He was arrested the next day.
Gonzalez remained in custody until March, when he was released and given an ankle monitor. During his plea agreement hearing on Thursday, Gonzalez’s counsel Anthony Marin asked U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper if Gonzalez could have his ankle monitor removed — claiming that it could hurt Gonzalez if he tried to get a job.
Cooper denied the request, but said that Marin could try again if Gonzalez had an experience where he was denied a position.
Follow Samantha Hawkins on Twitter
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
Additional Reads
-
DOJ announces new crime gun intelligence center in Chicago April 17, 2024 -
