Alleged supporters of right-wing Three Percenters group charged in new Jan. 6 Capitol riot conspiracy
By Spencer S. Hsu and Rachel Weiner
June 10, 2021 at 7:03 p.m. EDT
Six Southern California men, including four self-described members of the Three Percenters movement, were arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
The new indictment adds the Three Percenters to the list of right-wing groups — mainly the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys — whose alleged associates have been charged with conspiring to impede police or thwart Congress’s confirmation of the 2020 presidential election results.
The 28-page indictment unsealed Thursday accuses the men of felony counts of conspiracy and aiding and abetting the obstruction of a joint session of Congress, although only one defendant allegedly entered the Capitol.
Alan Hostetter, 56, of San Clemente and Russell Taylor, 40, of Ladera Ranch are accused of working with an uncharged third person, identified only as Person One, to launch the American Phoenix Project last year to oppose pandemic restrictions and then support President Donald Trump’s bogus claims of election fraud.
After the November election, Hostetter, a yoga instructor
and former police chief in Orange County, used the project “as a platform to advocate violence against certain groups and individuals” supporting the election’s outcome, which he called an act of treason that stripped citizens of their rights, according to the indictment.
“Some people at the highest levels need to be made an example of with an execution or two or three,” Hostetter said in a video he recorded while traveling to Washington for a pro-Trump MAGA march on Nov. 14 and posted Nov. 27 on the project’s YouTube channel, the indictment alleged.
“That’s not hyperbole when we call it tyranny. . . . And tyrants and traitors need to be executed as an example,” he said, according to charging papers.
Others charged in the eight-count indictment handed up Wednesday include: Erik Scott Warner, 45, of Menifee; Felipe Antonio “Tony” Martinez, 47, and Derek Kinnison, 39, both of Lake Elsinore; and Ronald Mele, 51, of Temecula.
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/three-percenters-charged-conspiracy-capitol-riot/2021/06/10/f84091e6-c9ec-11eb-81b1-34796c7393af_story.html
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