Feds: Man in Capitol attack tried to flee to Switzerland

NEW YORK — A Colorado geophysicist accused of dragging a police officer down steps to be beaten by an American flag outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was ordered held without bail Friday after a prosecutor said the man afterward tried to flee to Switzerland and commit suicide.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Krause, based in White Plains, said during an electronic hearing that he found the alleged actions by Jeffrey Sabol, a 51-year-old born in Utica, New York, “beyond the pale and it is troubling to a degree that is really … shocking.”

Krause said the allegations were “very disturbing, deeply troubling” and that Sabol needed to remain behind bars as a danger to the community and a risk to flee. Sabol was arrested Friday morning at the Westchester Medical Center.

“What we see is Mr. Sabol, part of a group of people dragging a law enforcement officer down the steps of a building at the Capitol, where that officer has been repeatedly assaulted by a number of people, apparently including Mr. Sabol,” Krause said.

The judge said he also saw video footage that showed Sabol going back up the stairs after the first officer was dragged down to possibly look for someone else to bring “down those stairs into the teeth of that mob that was at the Capitol that day.”

After the attack, Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Gianforti said, Sabol booked a flight from Boston Logan International Airport to Zurich, Switzerland, where he would not be able to be extradited to the U.S.