Nassau County man arrested on felony charges over struggle at Jan. 6 Capitol riot

A Nassau County man faces charges involving struggling with police at the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot that could put him in prison for eight years or more.

Garth Nathaniel Walton, 32, was arrested Monday in Yulee, according to a federal court filing saying an arrest warrant had been served.

A complaint filed in federal court in Washington charged him with seven separate counts, including felonies of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers and obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder.

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Walton is among more than 530 people charged so far with assaulting or impeding law enforcement during the riot, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington.

Investigators are still tracking people from the riot and in April an FBI agent questioned a Nassau County sheriff’s deputy who had dealt with Walton at an “emergency situation” in July 2023, according to a filing called a statement of facts .

The agent had recorded images of a man at the riot and reported the deputy said he was “100 percent sure” two of the images mached Walton, whose driver’s license the deputy had checked when they met last year, according to the statement. The deputy said he also thought a third image was Walton but was less sure, the statement said.

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The filing said records showed someone calling himself Garth Walton had checked into a Washington hotel Jan. 5, 2021 and checked out the day after the riot, where supporters of former President Donald Trump overran the Capitol and temporarily halted a joint session of Congress that certified President Jose Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

The agent’s statement of facts said bodycam footage from police providing security at the Capitol showed Walton was outside the building by early afternoon, when officers had nearly finished setting up a line of metal barricades at the top of the Capitol’s West Plaza stairs.

“Walton went up approximately four steps, approached the line of officers, and grabbed a metal barricade and pushed it into the officers,” the statement said.

The statement included bodycam images of a man with the same type of jacket and hat as the man  identified as Walton pushing on the barrier with both hands, leaning into the obstacle as an officer seemed to obstruct it.

Another bodycam image, time-stamped about 25 second later, showed a man the statement identified as Walton “holding a long white pole before throwing it at officers.”

Assaulting, resisting or impeding officers and obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder are felonies that can carry sentences up to eight years and five years, respectively. The other charges are misdemeanors carrying sentences of less than a year.

Close to 1,500 people have been charged with some crime related to the Capitol riot, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Nassau County man arrested on felony charges over struggle at Jan. 6 Capitol riot