A leader of the far-right Proud Boys group who was photographed grinning and smoking a cigarette in the halls of Congress during Wednesday’s riot has been arrested, federal officials said.
FBI agents collared Nicholas R. Ochs, 34 of Hawaii, at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu on Thursday as he was arriving home from Washington, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
He is charged with misdemeanor unlawful entry of restricted buildings or grounds.
Prosecutors used Ochs’ own social media accounts as proof of his participation in the pro-Trump mob that breached the Capitol on Wednesday as Congress prepared to vote whether to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. His smoking selfie is cited in the complaint.
“Hello from the Capital[sic] lol,” Ochs wrote on Twitter Wednesday afternoon, captioning a shot of him and another person with lit cigarettes in their mouths.
Ochs, the leader of the Proud Boys’ Hawaii faction, admitted he was inside
