FBI offers $15k reward for Jan 6 fugitive accused of assaulting police with a deadly weapon
Jonathan Daniel Pollock, 23, is from Lakeland, Florida and may be working in construction
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The FBI has announced a $15,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of January 6 rioter Jonathan Daniel Pollock.
The 23-year-old central Florida man from Lakeland faces multiple high-level charges and is accused of “assaulting multiple police officers with a deadly weapon”, according to the FBI.
The FBI offices in DC and in Tampa, Florida issued the call for information.
“We’ve been trying to locate Mr Pollock since last summer,” FBI Tampa Acting Special Agent in Charge Sanjay Virmani said in a statement. “The allegations against him aren’t going away and must be dealt with. The FBI is patient but determined to bring to justice those responsible for the violence at the US Capitol on January 6th.”
The agency said Mr Pollock, a welder and ironworker, is thought to have “friends and family throughout central and north Florida, as well as in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas”.
He could be working in the construction business, the FBI said. The agency listed his birthdate as 21 February 1999. He stands at 5’10, has brown hair, and weighs around 160 pounds.
The FBI Washington Field Office began reviewing the case of an unknown man on 21 January last year. The man would later be identified as Mr Pollock.
In a video posted to Twitter by the FBI office in Tampa on 19 October, Mr Pollock can be seen wearing camouflage clothing as he takes part in the battle with police officers at the Capitol.
The office said he fled the Lakeland area in late June of last year and has since been a fugitive.
Mr Pollock’s four co-defendants were all arrested around the same time in June. One of the co-defendants is his sister, Olivia Pollock, who also faces felony charges, according to the Lakeland Ledger.
All the other co-defendants have been released on bond pending trial. One of them, Joshua Doolin, 24, faces misdemeanour charges for entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds. The rest face felony charges.
His lawyer Allen Orenberg have argued that Mr Doolin should be tried separately as he could be tainted by the others, who are facing more serious charges. Mr Orenberg argues that a joint trial presents “a substantial risk of prejudice” for Mr Doolin, The Ledger reported.
In his motion to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia requesting the separation of the cases, he said that keeping the evidence separate “would be extremely difficult, if not impossible”.
Mr Orenberg wrote that the other defendants “as well as un-indicted co-conspirators, chiefly orchestrated and carried out the bulk of the criminal acts alleged in the indictment”.
Assistant United States Attorney Matthew Moeder pushed back in a 13-page memo, noting that Mr Doolin and his co-defendants are related or friends. Last year, a relative told The Ledger that Mr Doolin is a cousin of the Pollock siblings.
The other co-defendants are Joseph Hutchinson III, who previously lived in Lakeland and now resides in Georgia, and Michael Perkins from Plant City, Florida.
Mr Moeder wrote that the group of five “toppled a police barricade, engaged in a coordinated effort to attack law enforcement officers, and engaged in disruptive and disorderly conduct for several hours”.
He added that they used several weapons, including flagpoles, a chemical irritant canister, and riot shields.
The prosecutor noted that the group didn’t enter the congressional building, but that they did reach the Upper West Terrace and the Lower West Terrace in an attempt to do so.
Mr Moeder alleged that the group “participated in assaultive conduct” against police officers for 20 minutes and that Mr Doolin followed Mr Pollock as he grabbed a riot shield from an officer and used it to attack members of law enforcement.