Maine man charged in Capitol riot denied bail

Judy Harrison, Bangor Daily News, Maine
·3 min read

Apr. 7—A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday denied bail for the Lebanon man charged in the Jan. 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol after watching a video that allegedly shows Kyle Fitzsimons, 37, charging a line of police officers.

Fitzsimons is facing 10 charges in connection with his participation in the events in Washington, D.C., two weeks before the inauguration of President Joe Biden. Those counts include separate alleged assaults on two different police officers.

He has been held without bail since his arrest on Feb. 4 at his home in Maine.

U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Michael Harvey agreed with federal prosecutors' arguments that Fitzsimons would be a danger to the community and a flight risk if released on bail. The judge rejected Fitzsimons' contention that a crowd pushed him from behind into the police line.

Harvey told Fitzsimons that that was not what he saw on video from an officer's body camera and surveillance footage.

"I saw you charge at the officers, you were beat down but then got up and went back at them," the judge said.

Most of the defendants who are being held without bail in connection with the riots were able to get inside the Capitol. Others are charged with conspiring to commit violence or assaulting police officers, as Fitzsimons is.

Fitzsimons is the only Maine resident of the nearly 400 defendants who have been charged in what the Department of Justice is calling the "Capitol breach cases."

The Lebanon man, who until his arrest worked as a butcher at a southern Maine supermarket, was part of a group that forced its way past police and into the Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of results in the November presidential election. Fitzsimons never made it inside but, wearing a butcher's jacket and carrying an unstrung bow, he and others overcame officers in a police line.

Fitzsimons allegedly grabbed an officer's shoulder and tried to pull him into the crowd. That caused him to fall, and the officer struck Fitzsimons in the head several times to free himself from the Maine man's grip.

After being struck by the baton, Fitzsimons moved and charged at the line of officers, according to court documents. He allegedly grabbed an officer's gas mask and pulled it to the side before another person behind Fitzsimons covered the officer in pepper spray.

In arguing for detention, federal prosecutors cited phone calls Fitzsimons made to Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree's office in which he allegedly yelled at a staff member and opposed former President Donald Trump's impeachment. He allegedly told the staffer that "we're coming for her," meaning Pingree.

The calls were reported to the Capitol Police, according to Pingree's spokesperson.

Pingree is not the only lawmaker Fitzsimons has allegedly targeted. Rep. Michele Meyer, an Eliot Democrat, said that she had tense encounters with Fitzsimons over gun safety legislation in 2019.

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