A Capitol rioter who led some members of the pro-Trump mob through Speaker Pelosi’s office dressed as a member of Antifa, and assaulted police then bragged about it was released from jail pending trial.
William Robert Norwood III, from South Carolina, was arrested in February after a tipster pointed out messages he sent to family members boasting about the attack and claiming he stole items from the police.
On Jan. 5 Norwood— who goes by “Robbie” — wrote : “I’m dressing in all black. I’ll look just like ANTIFA. I’ll get away with anything.”
“It worked,” he wrote to family members the morning after the riot, according to court documents obtained by the Daily Beast. “I got away with things that others were shot or arrested for.”
“The cop shot a female Trump supporter. Then allowed ‘ANTIFA Trump supporters’ to assault him. I was one of them. I was there. I took his [expletive],” he wrote in another text that same morning.
He went on to brag of his bounty. “I got a nice helmet and body armor off a cop for God’s sake and i disarmed him,” he wrote in messages to friends and family. “Tell me how that works.”
In a group chat he admitted to assaulting officers then defended his actions after he received pushback, writing, “the cops who acted s***** got exactly what they deserved … The ones who were cool, got help.”
Norwood later told the FBI that he did not assault officers on Jan. 6 as he had claimed in his messages to family. He also said he didn’t take the police vest and helmet off of an officer, as he had claimed in the group chat.
Norwood said he only claimed to have assaulted police in order to “sound tough,” the FBI said. He told officers he got the police vest and helmet from an equipment pile that was lying on the west side of the Capitol building and left them in the Hampton Inn hotel room where he stayed on the night of Jan. 6, according to court documents.
The FBI said the items were later found in a storage trailer in Greenville, South Carolina.
As for how he ended up in Speaker Pelosi’s office where he stole a paper coaster, Norwood said he ” had no choice” since he was pushed to the entrance of the Capitol by the crowd on Jan. 6. Once inside he wandered around for a bit and ultimately ended up in an office that turned out to be that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
He is charged with two felonies: obstruction of an official proceeding and theft of government property.
He was released on Saturday pending trial after he petitioned the court last week. The court determined that he was not a threat to society due to his lack of a criminal history, the Daily Beast reports.
“Aside from the defendant’s messages boasting about disarming a law enforcement officer, the government does not have any evidence that defendant engaged in any physically violent or assaultive conduct inside or outside the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021,” the court ruled, submitting that “defendant should be released pending trial.”
Norwood is required to wear an electronic monitor, subject to random drug testing and stick to curfew.
