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WASHINGTON (AP) — A man accused of firing a gun in the air during a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol has been arrested on charges that he kidnapped and sexually assaulted a woman in Utah more than two years before the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, according to authorities and newly unsealed court records.
John Emanuel Banuelos, 40, was arrested in Illinois last month on a warrant from Salt Lake County, Utah. He remained jailed in Cook County, Illinois, on Monday, according to a spokesperson for the county sheriff’s office. The spokesperson didn’t know if Banuelos has an attorney.
Banuelos, of Summit, Illinois, was arrested in March 2024 on felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from the Capitol siege. Surveillance video captured Banuelos scaling scaffolding outside the Capitol before he pulled a gun from his waistband and fired two shots into the air, the FBI said.
The Jan. 6 charges against Banuelos were wiped away by President Donald Trump’s sweeping act of clemency in January. On the first day of his second term, Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of cases all of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot,
Banuelos alluded to the possibility of mass pardons for Capitol rioters during his May 2024 arraignment in Washington, D.C.
“Well, President Trump’s going to be in office six months from now, so I’m not worried about it,” he said after a judge warned him that he was “in too much trouble to be joking around” during the hearing, according to a transcript.
Others accused of joining the Capitol riot have faced unrelated criminal charges since Trump’s pardons. A man arrested in June 2023 with guns and ammunition near former President Barack Obama’s home also was charged with storming the Capitol. The man, Taylor Taranto, was jailed for over 22 months before a judge sentenced him last month to time served.
In Utah, Banuelos faces felony charges of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault, according to court records unsealed last Thursday.
A woman told police that Banuelos drugged and sexually assaulted her for over 12 hours in June 2018 after he approached her at a train station and invited her to a party at his home. The woman said Banuelos also struck her in the face, strangled her and threatened to kill her, according to a court filing.
“The victim recounted that the day she met the defendant was the first day she had experienced homelessness, and she was scared and vulnerable,” a police report says.
Approximately three months ago, DNA evidence linked Banuelos to the woman’s assault, according to police. Banuelos has been arrested over two dozen times in Illinois and Utah, police said.
