ATLANTA – A Georgia man has been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that disrupted the counting of electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election.
Cylester Maxwell, 42, of Alpharetta was taken into custody in Georgia on Friday and charged with assaulting law enforcement officers with a dangerous weapon and civil disorder, both felonies. He also faces misdemeanor charges of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and engaging in physical violence in a Capitol building or grounds.
According to court records, Maxwell was identified in video footage marching with a crowd of rioters away from the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse toward the Capitol building. Maxwell then entered the restricted grounds of the Capitol and positioned himself near the front of a crowd confronting a police line on the West Plaza.
A short time later, he joined others in the crowd in shoving a giant metal-framed “TRUMP” sign into the line of police like a battering ram. A few seconds later, he let go of the sign and pulled a barricade away from the police line.
Maxwell later joined the front of the mob as it broke through the police line. He then remained on or near the West Plaza as rioters flooded the Capitol’s Lower and Upper West Terraces.
The case was investigated by the FBI’s Atlanta and Washington field offices and is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Justice Department’s Counterterrorism Section.