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Proud Boy Christopher Worrell will be taken to Washington, D.C., and remain in custody until his trial, a judge ruledin response to charges against himlinked to the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said that the evidence against Worrell, 49, of East Naples,met the government criteria for denying bond. She said her decision included Worrelldispersing pepper spray gel on officers, his level of preparation, his history of intimidating and threatening behavior and his refusal to comply with FBI orders.

"The weight of evidence is strong here and favors detention," she said.

More: New attorney retained for East Naples man arrested in connection to Capitol riots

More: East Naples man arrested for involvement in Capitol riot believed to be 'Proud Boy'

Christopher Worrell of East Naples at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a photo included in an FBI statement of facts a federal magistrate signed March 10, 2021.(Photo: Photo courtesy of the FBI)

Howell ordered Worrell transferred from Tampa to a Washington, D.C., holding facility until trial. His next court appointment is at 10 a.m. April 8, unless he is indicted before that, she said.

John Pierce, former attorney for Kyle Rittenhouse, is representing Worrell. Rittenhouse was charged after he fatally shot two men with an AR-15-style rifle on Aug. 25, the third night of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Pierce cited riots around the country, including the one in Wisconsin,as reason why Worrell was wearing a tactical vest, carried pepper spray gel and had an ear piece to communicate with people the government identified as other Proud Boys.

The prosecution had said the evidence shows that Worell and other Proud Boys listened to the president before walking to the Capitol.

The judge didn't buy Worrell's reasoning for his preparation.

"We have marches all the time in Washington, D.C.," she said. "This is not a march. This is a mob of assault on the Capitol,not following directions of police and breaking police lines. This was not a protest march. And if the defendant thoughtthat 's what he was doing and not understanding why hes sitting there, that gives me pause."

FBI agents arrested Worrell on March 12, at the home he shares with his girlfriend, Trish Priller, an executive assistant for the Naples Daily News. Worrell was taken to Tampa, where he's spent the last week, held without bond.

Prosecutors revealed Friday that Worrell was not at his home during the raid, saying he was 3 hours away camping. He was immediately contacted and instructed to turn himself in at the nearest FBI office.

They said Worrell instead told them that he would meet them at his home. The lawyers said he was emotional, they didn't know what he planned or where he was specifically and he had access to a cell phone for at least two hours past what an arrested person would normally have.

"He had three hours to think on his drive," prosecutors said.

Howell later cited the exchange and a 2009 arrest for impersonating an officer as a reason to deny Worrell bail. Court documents indicate he saw a woman drive through a yellow light, flashed a badge at her, and yelled at her. She called police, who found a badge, guns, handcuffs and a heavy duty flashlight in his front seat. He is not an officer.

Howell said that history, coupled with the FBI arrest, is a significant "backdrop" to imposing his own authority to the point of breaking the law."

She also questioned both attorneys about the significance of Worrell, pictured with Proud Boys, flashing an "OK" sign,which has gained ground as a White Power symbol. Two photos show Worrell with his thumb and index finger making the shape of an "O" or a "P" and three fingers forming a "W", standing for White Power.

As of Feb. 3, at least a half dozen people charged for their involvement in the Capitol riots were linked to the Proud Boys,an extremist group with ties to white nationalism.

White Boys adamantly deny any connection to the racist 'alt-right.'

Worrell's statement to the FBI in late January, included "the Proud Boys were not a racist white supremacist group like the media tries to portray."

Howell said because Worrell used the hand sign, she wasn't convinced of his statement.

Authorities investigating the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol say two extremist groups that traveled to Washington along with thousands of other Trump supporters weren't whipped into an impulsive frenzy by President Donald Trump. (March 10) AP Domestic

Previously: Prosecution: East Naples man sprayed pepper spray toward law enforcement officers at Capitol riot

More: Naples man among those arrested in Washington D.C. after violent Capitol siege

Howell questioned the government lawyers extensively on whether the pepper spray gel could be considered a dangerous weapon.

The prosecuting attorney explained the gel is "67 times more powerful than hot sauce," that the brand used was "double the average strength of other pepper sprays" and had better stopping power.

While Pierce told Howell that Worrell didn't intentionally spray officers, telling him that he was spraying another person in the mob who attacked older women, she pointed out that photos of the incident that Capitol police offers were in the line of the spray; and the defense did not provide anything different.She questioned why he wouldn't let police handle the incident and said it appeared that the police were his target.

By spraying the gel, a half-dozen officers broke the line to seek water to wash their eyes. That police line was joining another line closer to the building, where the mob broke through and into the Capitol.

The FBI received a tip that Worrellparticipated in the riots on Jan. 6 from someone who knows him, according to the prosecution.

While he was being arrested, Worrell told law enforcement that he knew the tipster, and he also said he knew the Twitter user who posted pictures of him at the capital.

Howell said that when Worrell told agents that when he caught up to the Twitter user,the FBI would be coming for him again."

"That's bold intimations of threats and thatraises a witness intimidation concern," Howell said, adding it figured into her decision to not grant bond..

As far as the government is aware, Worrell did not enter the U.S. Capitol building.

"Yes, he was definitely on the grounds, he felt that was his right," Pierce said. "But he loves his country, he was absolutely adamant that neither him norany of the friends that he was with enter any federal building."

The judge wasnot swayed.

"He understands my skepticism about him saying he was emphatically not going into Capitol building because he went into a restricted area, he was not following police commands and, as part of this crowd, mob, he was trying to stopthewhole reason they were there was to stop the count of electoral college votes. Why was he even there then?"

Worrell faces fivecharges connected to the Jan. 6 riot, according to the latest document filed by the prosecution:

Knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority while carrying a dangerous weapon

Knowingly engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct in any restricted building or grounds while a dangerous weapon

Knowingly engaging in an act of physical violence in any restricted building or grounds while a dangerous weapon

Violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol Grounds

Obstruction of Justice/Congress

Naples Daily News reporter Jake Allen contributed to this report.

Read or Share this story: https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/crime/2021/03/19/capitol-riots-d-c-judge-orders-east-naples-man-proud-boys-ties-remain-jailed/4762784001/

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D.C. Judge orders East Naples man with Proud Boys ties to remain jailed through trial - Naples Daily News

For decades, Jewish leaders have said the main fight against anti-Semitism should be a fight against unfair criticism of Israel. The Anti-Defamation League, which was started after the lynching of a Jewish man in Georgia in 1913, spends increasing amounts of time on dubious projects to defend the Israel state. Other Jewish organizations use their political capital trying to ban Americans from boycotting Israeli institutions that are assisting in Israeli government repression.

All the while anti-Jewish racists in this country are coming out of their holes and striking, They started using triple parenthesis to mean Jew on Twitter and their messages were retweeted literally billions of times. They marched in Charlottesville screaming, Jews will not replace us. An immigrant-hating man massacred 11 Jews at a temple in Pittsburgh. Anti-Jew hate appeared in QAnon and from the Proud Boys. Trump flirted with them, retweeting their venom, and at the same time pretending not to know them.

Yet whats the burning issue for our Jewish establishment leaders? Its a campaign to force a definition of anti-Semitism onto world governments to protect Israels government from criticism. It came from an organization representing governments and Holocaust scholars called the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA. The group was created to expose those who would disguise their hatred of Jews by doubting the reality or the extent of the Holocaust. That effort is undoubtedly worthwhile.

But in 2016 the group came out with a Working Definition of anti-Semitism complete with examples, and many of the examples had to do with Israel. Supposedly anti-Semitism included targeting the state of Israel, saying that Israel was a racist endeavor, applying double standards to Israel, and comparing things the Israeli state has done with things German Nazis had done. Human rights supporters including organizations like the (120-year-old Jewish group) the Workmens Circle, and Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now took exception. Nevertheless, the definition/examples were adopted by the British government and it became the subject of one of Trumps executive orders.

All the while the far right was organizing. On Jan. 6, its followers exploded in attempted insurrection. That one of the rioters wore a Camp Auschwitz shirt seemed to bother none of them.

Something is really wrong with the conventional wisdom on how to oppose anti-Semitism. Even some establishment figures are realizing it. The Israeli paper Haaretz on Feb. 21 interviewed leading Holocaust scholar Professor Deborah Lipstadt who said if you look at the IHRA definition, You wont find right-wing anti-Semitism there; you wont find Pittsburgh there; you wont find Poway there; you wont find Halle, Germany, there; you wont find what we saw from some of the groups on January 6 at the Capitol there.

Yet the establishment continues on as if nothing was happening. There is a post in the State Department called Special Envoy to Combat and Monitor Anti-Semitism. The media is speculating that the Biden administration will give it to Abraham Foxman, who led the ADL for decades. What a mistake!

In 1993 it came out that the ADL had run for years a vast spying operation on Arab-Americans, African-Americans, Native Americans and left-wing groups. Foxman defended the program vehemently. Ten years ago Foxman had the ADL oppose the building of the Park-51 Islamic Center in Manhattan because it supposedly was too close to the site where al-Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center. Worse than all this is the ongoing ADL-sponsored police exchange programs with Israel. Through it police, ICE, border patrol and FBI from the U.S. mix with soldiers, police, border agents, etc. from Israel. Jewish Voice for Peace which opposes the program, says worst practices are shared to promote and extend discriminatory and repressive policing in both countries. The police exchange is another Foxman program.

A new approach is needed, one that realizes what our grandparents knew, that hatred of Jews mostly comes from the far right, from fascists, white nationalists, alt-right or whatever they call themselves. We need leaders who realize that the fight against anti-Semitism is a fight against all racism and not an effort to advance Jewish nationalism. We need a special envoy, a Jew or non-Jew, whose record reflects that understanding.

Stanley Heller is executive director of the Middle East Crisis Committee and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace. He can be reached at mail@thestruggle.org.

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Opinion: We're fighting anti-Semitism the wrong way - The Wilton Bulletin

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come under criticism for holding his partys congress inside a packed sports complex amid a new surge of COVID-19 cases

ByThe Associated Press

March 24, 2021, 4:32 PM

2 min read

ANKARA, Turkey -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan came under criticism Wednesday for holding his partys congress inside a packed sports complex amid a new surge of COVID-19 cases.

Thousands of ruling party supporters filled the stands of the 10,400-capacity complex in Ankara despite the Turkish governments social distancing rules. Videos posted on social media purported to show busloads of ruling party supporters traveling to the capital to attend the congress, many without masks. Wearing masks in public spaces is mandatory in Turkey.

Erdogan spoke for nearly two hours at the event, presenting his vision for when the country marks the centenary of the Turkish Republic in 2023, when the country is also scheduled to hold presidential and parliamentary elections. He said he cut remarks short in order not to expose congress participants to the virus.

Murat Emir, a physician and lawmaker from Turkeys main opposition party, described the scenes from the party congress as shameful, writing on Twitter that the event showed disregard for the health workers who work day and night in the battle against the pandemic.

Former Ankara mayor Melih Gokcek, a member of Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, maintained that delegates were tested for the coronavirus before attending the congress.

Erdogan has been criticized for holding similarly crowded local party congresses across the country in past weeks despite the pandemic. During one such event, he boasted about the size of the crowd.

Turkey reported close to 30,000 new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, weeks after the government eased restrictions in dozens of provinces under a so-called controlled normalization program. The country also reported 146 deaths in the past 24 hours.

On March 1, the government divided Turkeys provinces into four risk categories and allowed restaurants and cafes to reopen in low, medium and high-risk areas. Weekend lockdowns were also eased in those provinces, although nighttime curfews introduced in late November remain in place across Turkey.

Read more from the original source:
Erdogan under fire for packed congress despite virus surge ...

Recent interest-rate shifts in the U.S. and other developed economies were bound to have consequences for emerging markets, and it looks like Turkey is first in the dock. The lira plunged about 14% versus the dollar Monday in an incipient crisis that is mostly but not entirely the fault of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

This weeks lira ruction was caused by Mr. Erdogans sacking on Saturday of the head of the central bank. The main sin of the deposed monetary maestro, Naci Agbal, was to wage an aggressive battle against inflation. He had raised the policy rate to 19% from 10.25% in an attempt to stabilize consumer prices that rose 15.6% year-on-year in February. Mr. Erdogan prefers to goose economic growth as much as possible no matter the inflationary consequences, and he seems to believe that higher interest rates cause higher prices.

Mr. Erdogans bad economic management isnt news. Turkey on his watch has suffered repeated crises of various sorts, most recently with another inflation spike that became a currency crash in 2018. But two differences are notable this time.

One is that investors had convinced themselves Mr. Erdogan had finally seen the light on economic policy, and now claim to be surprised that he hasnt. Mr. Agbals appointment in November, along with the resignation of Mr. Erdogans son-in-law who had been finance minister, was heralded as a sign that competent people would be in charge of macroeconomic policy. Yet Mr. Erdogan is Turkeys biggest economic problem and guess what, folks: Theres still gambling at Ricks.

The other new factor is the global economic environment, which is much less hospitable than during the last Turkish crisis two years ago. The pandemic is straining economies everywhere, and Turkey has been hit especially hard by the collapse of travel due to its reliance on tourism. With the summer vacation season in doubt, especially for Turkeys many European visitors, its not clear how the country can start earning its way out of the financial hole.

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Erdogan Tanks the Turkish Lira - The Wall Street Journal

MUSCAT: Shoaib Ismail and Adnan Ul Haqs magnificent all-round performances powered Maniz Azad International to a 46-run victory against Bank Muscat in a Senior Division Knockout Tournament game at Muscat Municipality ground 2 in Amerat on Friday.

Adnan struck a vital 51 while Shoaib contributed a breezy 34 as Maniz Azad posted 161 for 7 on the board in 20 overs. Muhammed Umar picked up 3 for 29. Shoaib was unplayable with the ball, taking 5 for 19 while Usman Asghar and Adnan claimed two wickets each as Bank Muscat was dismissed for 115 in 18.5 overs. Abbas Al Balushi topscored with a fine 44.

Brief Scores (Knockout - Senior): Maniz Azad International 161 for 7 in 20 overs (Adnan Haq 51- 6x4, Shoaib Ismail 34 6x4, 1x6, Muhammed Umar 3-29, Vinoth Thangavel 2-35) beat Bank Muscat 115 all out in 18.5 overs (Abbas Al Balushi 44 3x4, Shoaib Ismail 5-19, Usman Asgher 2-17, Adnan Haq 2-15) by 46 runs.

Nadeem helps Orient to victory

In another Senior Division Knockout match, Nadeem Karamat Ali excelled with the bat and ball to steer Orient Travels/Gitacs to an emphatic 6-wicket win over Khalsa United at the same venue in the afternoon.

Khalsa could not post an imposing total on the board as it was restricted to 127 for 9 due largely to Nadeems brilliant 3 for 31. Rafique and Umar Rahman bowled well too, taking two wickets each. Sushil Kadam scored 32.

Orient chased the total down in 16.1 overs, scoring 129 for 4 with Ibrar Hussain striking an elegant 55 not out and Nadeem Karamat contributing 39.

Brief Scores (Knockout - Senior): Khalsa United CT 127 for 9 in 20 overs (Sushil Kadam 32 2x4, Nadeem Karamat Ali 3-31, Rafque 2-18, Umar Rahman 2-13) lost to Orient Travels/Gitacs 129 for 4 in 16.1 overs (Ibrar Hussain 55 6x4, Nadeem Karamat Ali 39 5x4, Muhammad Parvez 2-29) by 6 wickets.

Waleed bats OHI to easy win

Waleed Rahims splendid 65 not out was the highlight of Douglas OHIs exciting 34-run victory against Ideal International in a Senior Division Knockout Tournament match at Muscat Municipality ground 1.

Waleed topscored while Ismail Al Balushi made 32 as OHI compiled 167 for 8. Salman Khan bagged 2 for 27.

Ideal failed to bat with the same flourish and was bundled out for 133 in 18.4 overs despite Salman Khans fluent 38. Viplav Kumar claimed 3 for 37 while Rajender Kumar and Mohsin Alimamad took two wickets each.

Brief Scores (Knockout - Senior): Douglas OHI 167 for 8 in 20 overs (Waleed Rahim 65 5x4, Ismail Al Balushi 32 5x4, Salman Khan 2-27) beat Ideal International 133 all out in 18.4 overs (Salman Khan 38 5x4, Wasim Jamadar 32 4x4, 1x6. Viplav Kumar 3-37, Rajender Kumar 2-22, Mohsin Alimamad 2-24) by 34 runs.

Abdul Jalil stars in Al Hail A win

In another Senior Knockout game, Abdul Jalils superb 62 helped OCT Al Hail A to a thumping 59-run win over Zubair CT at Muscat Municipality ground 1. Abduls brilliant batting led Al Hail side to 165 for 8 in 20 overs. Arif Khan and Ruwan Rupa picked up three wickets each.

Zubairs chase was over quickly as it was bowled out for a dismal 106 in 15.5 overs. Abdul Ghani was the pick of the bowlers, taking 3 for 18 whereas Suhaib Abdul and Hisham Shafi bagged two wickets each.

Brief Scores (Knockout - Senior): Oct Al Hail 'A' 165 for 8 in 20 overs (Abdul Jalil 62 6x4, 3x6, Arif Khan 3-17, Ruwan Rupa 3-27) beat Zubair 106 all out in 15.5 overs (Fazal Khan 24 2x4, Parthiban Mohan 23 1x4, 1x6, Abdul Ghani 3-18, Suhaib Abdul 2-15, Hisham Shafi 2-24, Ismail Al Balushi 2-27) by 59 runs.

Brief Scores (Knockout - Junior): Sam Royals 149 for 8 in 20 overs (Shaji Shanu 43 4x4, 2x6, Mohammed Arif 2-27) lost to Aflag Group CT 153 for 4 in 18.1 overs (Haris Alam 58 9x4, Junaid Iqbal 51 11x4, Vijith Ravi 3-19) by 6 wickets.

Brief Scores (Knockout - Junior): Israr Ghala 226 for 6 in 20 overs (Sagheer Muhammad 72 6x4, 4x6, Wajid Mohammed 39 7x4, Ahmed Tahir 36 5x4, Sooraj A Raj 3-42, Arun Kumar 2-45) Ideal Technology 155 all out in 19.5 overs (Vijesh Vijayakumaran 38 54, 1x6, Yasir Jamal 4-22, Amir Munir 3-20) by 71 runs.

Brief Scores (Knockout - Junior): Pitspot 153 for 9 in 20 overs (Wajid Ali 27 4x4, Mushir Nazir 34 2x4) beat Safara International 117 all out in 19.1 overs (Hardik Toprani 22, Mohazin Moosa 2-21, Anzil Nazumudeen 2-17) by 36 runs.

Brief Scores (Knockout - Junior): Vanderlande 189 for 7 in 20 overs (Vignesh Kumar 36 5x4, Prasanth Reddy 30 3x4, 1x6, Washil 4-31, Yesupaul Martin 2- 39) beat Sketch International 96 all out in 18.2 overs (Manish Bhatia 38 5x4, Vignesh Kumar 3-17, Aasim Mohammed 2-18) by 93 runs.

See more here:
Maniz Azad, Orient, OHI and Al Hail A march on in Senior Knockout tourney - Times of Oman