WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge ordered a Trump fanatic charged with assaulting law enforcement during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to remain in jail until his trial.
“He showed a complete disregard for the rule of law, culminating in attack on law enforcement with a chemical spray,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Robin Meriweather said at Samuel Lazar’s detention hearing on Tuesday.
Lazar, 35, was caught on video bragging about assaulting police, and spent months after the riot attending political events in support of former President Donald Trump, including an event for Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani in May. But FBI agents didn’t identify and arrest Lazar until late July — before that, he was known to online sleuths as #FacePaintBlowHard due to his camouflage face paint and bullhorn megaphone.
During the riot, Lazar approached a line of police officers and yelled “forward!” to the hundreds of rioters behind him through his megaphone, while signaling for them to charge the police.
“They attacked the people. We have a right to defend ourselves. Fuck the tyrants,” Lazar said in a video at the Capitol. “There’s a time for peace and there’s a time for war.”
Meriweather said she received over a dozen letters in support of Lazar, saying that he was a caring and honorable man who was an asset to his community and put his family first.
“There were numerous letters that indicate strong community support, friendships and relationships — including letters from neighbors and friends who have known him for various periods of time,” the magistrate said at the hearing.
But Meriweather noted that Lazar also has a criminal history that prohibits him from purchasing firearms, and made a false statement on a form in 2018 while trying to buy a firearm at a gun show. The judge also emphasized comments that Lazar posted on Facebook in December 2020 urging individuals to rise up and become armed.
“Overall I find his history and characteristics to be mixed,” Meriweather said. “Some parts favor detention and some release.”
But, once again, it was evidence from online sleuths that made the difference, as Meriweather said that she was considering home detention before several photos surfaced of Lazar holding and aiming firearms, including a photo of him holding an assault rifle that had a 30-round magazine inserted into it on a public street corner in Palmyra, Pennsylvania, in August 2020.
The photos surfaced just 20 minutes before Lazar’s Aug. 16 detention hearing, causing Meriweather to postpone the rest of the hearing until Tuesday.
Earlier this month, just hours before a Maryland man’s sentencing hearing for the low-level misdemeanor office of parading at the Capitol, an online sleuthing group named the Sedition Hunters posted a video of the man assaulting a police officer, causing the hearing to be abruptly postponed until October.
Meriweather explained that Lazar’s gun photos, his comments on social media and his conduct on Jan. 6 suggest that “Jan 6. was not truly such an aberration.”
Out of the over 600 people who have been charged in the Capitol attack, only a few dozen are being held in jail until their trials.
Earlier Tuesday, Michael Orangias, from Kentucky, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing at the Capitol. Orangias had originally denied going inside the Capitol building in interviews with FBI agents, but later admitted his guilt.
He faces up to six months in jail.
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