A 29-year-old Delaware man pleaded guilty Wednesday to a felony charge related to his actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, when he entered the building, physically fought with officers for hours and refused to leave until he was sprayed with a chemical irritant.
Anthony Alexander Antonio pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, and U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson set a sentencing hearing for Aug. 23.
In a hearing shortly after Antonio’s April 2021 arrest in Wilmington, Del., his attorney said Antonio “became hooked with what I call ‘Foxitus’ or ‘Foxmania’ and became interested in the political aspect and started believing what was being fed to him.”
Fox News has been widely criticized for amplifying former President Trump’s unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen. In April, the network agreed to pay $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems, which said it aired false information about its software that was being promoted by Trump and his allies.
In a press release Wednesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) laid out its extensive evidence against Antonio.
The DOJ said he was seen wearing a black tactical bulletproof vest with the words “Three Percenters,” referring to the far-right anti-government militia group. He was on the defensive lines, facing police officers across a metal fencing barrier by 1:22 p.m., when he yelled at police, “You want war? We got war. 1776 all over again.”
As the mob then pushed through, officers retreated and the mob followed. The press release said Antonio was confronting police officers in the lower west tunnel as rioters attempted to enter the Capitol building. During the confrontation, he held a stolen police shield and passed it along.
About two hours later, the DOJ said, rioters dragged a Metropolitan Police Department officer down a set of stairs, and Antonio “sprayed water and threw his water bottle in the direction of the officer who was being dragged by other rioters.”
Antonio reportedly told one police officer during a pause in the fighting that, “I’ll be honest, this isn’t against you personally. This is against our country.”
“Patriots! Everybody listen up! We’ve made it this far,” he said at one point into a bullhorn, addressing the riot. “We are holding the line. We are not moving until we get our way. This is a peaceful protest now. This is a peaceful protest now and always has been. Remember this is our Capitol; this is our house, these are our steps. If we have to sit here all night, we will. Do not bum rush us, we are trying to work with them.”
Antonio joined a group pushing against officers in the tunnel by about 4 p.m. and took a gas mask belonging to a police officer. While inside the tunnel, the DOJ said, “Antonio forcefully pushed and grappled with police officers and refused to leave until sprayed with a chemical irritant.”
He then entered the Capitol through a broken window.
At one point, before he entered the building, he saw an officer wearing a body camera. Asked who would see the footage, the officer told him the police department would, and Antonio leaned forward into the camera and said, “We will not back down.”
The press release quoted from an interview Antonio conducted later, while still on Capitol grounds, on Jan. 6.
“Yes, yes, we penetrated the Capitol building. There was three officers that were trying to work with us, when I had the megaphone. The other officers told them to shut up, mow us down, and they all sprayed us. They lifted up my gas mask and sprayed me in the face, beating us in the head with batons. So, we knew we couldn’t get through the doors,” he said, according to the release.
“So, we broke the window, got into the room, at that point … it was all over my hair, my face, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see, so I, we had to come up with a plan,” he continued. “We barricaded the door, broke everything, so we have something to use against ’em. While we were in there, trying to come up with a plan, I was useless, I was useless, so I left.”
Antonio’s attorney, Joseph Hurley, said during a 2021 hearing that Antonio believed he was following Trump’s orders to march on the Capitol and thought he was participating in a patriotic movement.
In an interview on CNN after he was charged, Antonio said he, “Shouldn’t have been there that day, [I] shouldn’t have been involved on those Capitol steps.” He also acknowledged that “[w]hat happened that day should not have happened … we should not attack law enforcement; we should not attack our American government.”
Antonio is among the more than 1,230 people charged with crimes connected to the breach of the Capitol.