Hammond man charged in insurrection
Misdemeanor counts include entering restricted area, disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds
Court documents released Friday by the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., show a Hammond man posing on the base of a statue inside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection, waving a flag while standing on a wall outside the building, and a screen shot from a video in which he discusses running through the building.
The documents also provide more information on how the FBI’s allegations against Kash Lee Kelly came together.
Kelly, 32, of Hammond, is charged in the District of Columbia with two misdemeanor counts, knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful entry, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, according to the charging documents.
On Jan. 9, the FBI received two anonymous tips that Kelly “breached the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. The tipsters stated that Kelly had posted multiple photos of himself on Facebook scaling the walls of the building and posing with a monument inside the United States Capitol Building,” documents state.
Additionally, documents state that on Monday, “law enforcement agents who have known Kelly for several years received three screenshots that depicted Kelly in and around the United States Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.”
Law enforcement officers were able to recognize and identify Kelly. The images appeared to be screenshots from his Facebook account, documents state.
“The day we let the Traitors who constantly push the divide in OUR country know that we are done playing their games. All ppl of all colors came together today and I couldn’t be more proud to be an AMERICAN,” said a caption with the screenshot of Kelly inside the Capitol with the statue.
In addition to two pictures of Kelly waving a flag while outside on the wall of the Capitol and the picture with the statue, court documents also include a screenshot from a video on social media titled, “Storming the CapitolStreet Interviews.” Kelly appears in the still image.
“We feel like our voices weren’t being heard which is why we ran through that Capitol Building. To let them know this is our house, and we were united, black, brown, red, yellow, didn’t matter … white, everybody stood together, we ran through that building and let them know this is our house, this is our country, and that’s our President,” authorities quote him as saying in the video. “And we’re not going to let them (expletive) with us, man, (expletive) with our liberty and our freedoms, we’re going to keep doing what we are doing.”
Kelly’s Facebook page, which has almost 380,000 followers, includes a link to a PayPal account to make donations for him. Additionally, two Change.org petitions directed at President Donald Trump request Kelly’s release.
Authorities here took Kelly into custody for violating the terms of
his bond with his travel while he awaits sentencing in a pending federal drug case; a telephonic hearing was held on that matter Thursday morning.
Joshua Adams, Kelly’s Chicago defense attorney, declined to comment on the newest charges. It’s not immediately clear where Kelly is being held; he was not yet listed on the federal Bureau of Prisons website and a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Hammond did not know where he was being held.
During Kelly’s bond revocation hearing held virtually from Hammond,
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Nozick said each misdemeanor carries a sentence of one year, and U.S. District Court Magistrate Andrew Rodovich said Kelly could serve up to 10 additional years for committing an offense while on bond. His plea agreement on the drug charges called for a sentence of about four years.
Nozick had the probable cause documents for the Washington charges during the bond revocation hearing.
No court dates are listed yet on the newest charges, but Kelly was scheduled for sentencing in the drug case on Feb. 11 before U.S. District Judge Philip Simon.
Kelly spoke at an Oct. 17 “Freedom Rally” at Central Park Plaza in downtown Valparaiso. The event was sponsored by the Porter County Republican Party and a flyer for the rally described Kelly as a “speaker and conservative social media superstar.”
Mike Simpson, chair of the county party organization, has said party officials “had no idea” about Kelly’s criminal past and only found out about it after seeing Kelly’s social media posts that appear to depict him in Washington, D.C.
Kelly has said in one of his videos that he has been open about his life and party officials knew about his background when they asked him to speak.