Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump protest in front of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, January 6, 2021.
Stephanie Keith | Reuters
A man linked to Roger Stone — the Republican “dirty trickster” who received a pardon from his friend former President Donald Trump — has been arrested on with criminal charges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
New York resident Roberto Minuta, who reportedly provided security to Stone in Washington in the hours before the pro-Trump invasion of the Capitol, was arrested Saturday, according to WNBC 4 New York.
Minuta, a tattoo artist in Newburgh, New York, who has connections to the right-wing Oath Keepers militia group, is scheduled to appear later Monday in federal court in White Plains, New York.
CNBC has requested details of the charges against Minuta from prosecutors.
Another man was arrested Saturday at JFK Airport in New York City by FBI on Capitol riot-related charges.
That man, Isaac Steve Sturgeon, is accused of picking up a metal barricade during the riot, pushing it into cops guarding the complex, and then crawling underneath it to get into the Capitol building, before he was blocked from entering.
Sturgeon, a 32-year-old lawn-care business owner from Dillon, Montana, is scheduled to appear in Brooklyn federal court on Monday on charges of obstruction of justice, and obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder. Prosecutors plan to ask a judge to order him detained without bond pending trial.
More than 200 people have been charged in connection with the riot, which began after a rally where Trump urged supporters to help him fight the confirmation by Congress of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Five people, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, died in connection to the riot.
Stone is a longtime friend of Trump, and a controversial figure in New York and national politics who revels in a self-identified dirty trickster image.
He was convicted at a federal trial in Washington in November 2019 of lying under oath to Congress about his efforts to get advance information about the disclosure of emails hacked by Russians from then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager and the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 campaign.
Trump, who claimed that Stone was “a victim of the Russia hoax,” in July 2020 commuted Stone’s 40-month prison sentence just days before Stone was set to enter prison.
Trump then pardoned Stone in late December, more than a month after losing to Biden in the general election.
On the same night, Trump also pardoned Stone’s former business partner, the Republican consultant Paul Manafort.
Manafort, who for some time had run Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, had been convicted of crimes related to his consulting work in Ukraine.
