Two Henrico County residents arrested for disorderly conduct at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021

Capitol BuildingPhoto byWikipedia Screenshot

WRIC 8 News reported that two residents of Henrico County have been arrested for allegedly entering the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Henrico County residents arrested

Bennett Andrew Blair and Celena Gabrielle Belton were arrested on Thursday, September 19, 2024. According to court documents, they were charged with the following crimes:

• disorderly conduct in a Capitol building
• disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building
• parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building

The investigation

The investigation began on February 1, 2021, after an FBI investigator received a tip saying that Bennett participated in the storming of the Capitol on January 6. The tip included a Snapchat video that Blair had allegedly posted.

During the investigation, the FBI received more videos uploaded to Snapchat allegedly showing Blair.

One of the videos shows Blair saying:

“We just [expletive] stormed the Capitol, we stormed the [expletive] Capitol. Look what we are doing, baby. Taking this country back!”

The videos played a major part in the arrest. The FBI investigator identified Belton seated at a conference table smoking something and Blair holding a cell phone filming her.

The videos were posted to a Snapchat account that was linked to an email address associated with Blair and a phone number associated with his previous address in the Tuckahoe area of Henrico.

On June 2, 2021, two people with close relationships with Blair reportedly identified the people in the photos as Blair and Belton as boyfriend and girlfriend. According to court documents, other witnesses who saw the videos corroborated the allegations that Blair and Belton were both at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Investigators concluded that Blair and Belton were inside the Capitol for around 23 minutes and on restricted Capitol grounds for even longer.

Now, both have been arrested three years later based on videos that were posted online.