Connecticut Man Charged With Felony In Connection To January 6 Insurrection

by Jamil Ragland

Image 11 of the photographic evidence included in the warrant for James Cleary’s arrest shows Cleary near the Tunnel entrance as rioters moved furniture from an office toward police, who were denying entry during the January 6 insurrection in 2021. Credit: Screengrab / US Department of Justice

A Connecticut man was arrested by the FBI on Thursday and charged with a felony and other misdemeanors for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in 2021.

James Roe Cleary, 56, of Waterford, is charged with a felony offense of obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder. In addition to the felony, Cleary is charged with misdemeanor offenses of simple assault, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building.

His initial court appearance is scheduled take place in federal court in Connecticut. 

According to court documents, the FBI received a tip on June 15, 2022, that Cleary had been within the restricted area of the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021. According to the tipster, Cleary had shared an image with a group of people that showed him underneath a window at the Capitol while another rioter attempted to break the glass. Cleary was also identified in several other pictures that were captured on the day of the insurrection. 

A year later, on June 16, 2023, Cleary turned himself in at the Waterford Police Department. He told police that he’d been waiting to be arrested for his involvement in the January 6 attack, and he confirmed that he was present at the Capitol by identifying himself in pictures found on the Sedition Hunters website. According to Cleary, he traveled to Washington with his wife early on the morning of January 6.

According to court documents, Cleary was identified in open-source and video footage near the opening of the Lower West Terrace Tunnel during a period of intense fighting between rioters and police. The Tunnel was the site of some of the most violent attacks against law enforcement on that day.

The FBI alleges that Cleary moved toward the mouth of the Tunnel as intense physical clashes continued between police and rioters who were trying to force their way through the entrance. By approximately 4:26 p.m., Cleary positioned himself at the mouth of the Tunnel, where he quickly moved his body toward the interior of the Tunnel and made a swiping motion at the head of a police officer. Police body-worn camera shows that roughly 10 seconds later, Cleary helped to pull a rioter out of the Tunnel. He then returned to the mouth of the Tunnel and allegedly made another swiping or grabbing gesture with his hand toward police officers.

Cleary was filmed on body-worn camera allegedly clambering across the bodies of a fallen rioter and a downed officer and grabbing a baton on the ground. Cleary then quickly handed the baton off to another rioter in the mob and then returned to the front of the Tunnel.

At about 4:28 p.m., Cleary helped pull a second rioter out of the Tunnel who had been filming and became trapped and moved north alongside the Capitol building and stood beneath a window as rioters began to break the glass panes. While standing near the broken window, Cleary grabbed and shoved an individual carrying camera equipment. Open-source video showed Cleary leaving the immediate area shortly afterward.

In the 44 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,504 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including more than 560 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, a felony.

The prosecutions take place against the backdrop of the federal case against former President Donald Trump for his role in the January 6 attack. That case was upended by a Supreme Court ruling that found that presidents have various levels of immunity for official acts. As a result, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a superceding indictment that maintained the charges of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights, while removing evidence that the Supreme Court ruling made inadmissible.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan made public a key filing by the special counsel. In the 165-page document, Smith makes the argument that Trump does not have immunity for his actions on January 6, and lays out the federal government’s evidence against the former president. 

“The defendant asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct. Not so,” Smith says in the court document. “Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one. Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted – a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role.”