QAnon Couple Who Appeared in HBO Documentary Arrested Over Capitol Attack
A Florida couple who appeared on TV shows supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory have been arrested in connection to the January 6 Capitol attack.
Jamie Buteau, 48, and Jennifer Buteau, 44, both of Ocala, are charged with a number of offenses including disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
Jamie Buteau also faces additional charges of obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder; assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers or employees; and engaging in physical violence on Capitol grounds after allegedly throwing a chair at Capitol Police officers.
According to an affidavit, the husband and wife were arrested after the FBI received a tip-off that one of the suspects wanted in connection to the storming of the building was Jamie Buteau. The tipster said he recognized him from a Vice News Tonight segment that aired on HBO in August 2018.
Both Jamie and Jennifer Buteau featured on Vice News Tonight wearing QAnon T-shirts discussing how Donald Trump pointed to Jamie Buteau as he held up a "Q" sign during one of his rallies, which they took as a sign Trump is connected and aware of the radical conspiracy theory.
The pair also appeared in the recent HBO series Q: Into The Storm, which focused on who is the mysterious leader of the movement known as "Q," alleged to at least some point to have been former 8kun administrator Ron Watkins.
The FBI was also told that Jennifer Buteau entered the Capitol, and had posted on Facebook afterward the dismissed claim that: "Antifa was infiltrating Trump supporters for the cameras."
According to court documents, the Buteaus entered the Capitol building on January 6 around 2:25 p.m. through a broken door in the Senate wing of the building.
From around 2:29 to 2:31 p.m. the pair remained near an elevator lobby between the Crypt and the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC). Moments later, Jamie Buteau was filmed on surveillance footage in the orientation lobby dragging a chair across the ground.
A separate video posted onto social media app Parler then shows a chair being thrown off-screen towards two police officers, who were retreating from the rioters as doors rolled down in an attempt to prevent rioters from entering the CVC.
"Neither the CCTV nor the Parler video shows Jamie Buteau throw the chair, but the timing of events as shown through both videos makes clear Jamie Buteau threw the chair," charging documents state.
The pair later exited the Capitol around 2:46 p.m, just over 30 minutes after they first arrived, through the building's south door.
The Department of Justice said that there have been 465 individuals arrested so far in connection to the Capitol breach, including over 130 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
