A federal judge has ordered that Capitol rioter, Army reservist and well-known Nazi sympathizer Timothy Hale-Cusanelli remain in jail until trial because he posed a threat to the public and that there was a potential for an “escalation of violence” from his long-held neo-Nazi beliefs, CNN reports.
“I am very concerned about the statements after January 6 suggesting that the defendant is looking forward to a civil war,” Federal Judge Trevor McFadden said at Tuesday’s court hearing. “Every judge is afraid of releasing somebody who then goes crazy. There’s a lot in here that makes me worried about that.”
Prosecutors brought up police reports from last year where Jewish people accused him of harassment. They said they were worried he might go after an informant who gave the FBI information that helped their case. And they mentioned that some coworkers at the Navy base where he worked in New Jersey felt afraid to confront him about his racist and sexist comments.
Thirty-four out of 44 of Hale-Cusanelli’s former colleagues at Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey interviewed by the Naval Criminal investigative Service said he held “extremist or radical views pertaining to the Jewish people, minorities, and women.”
Prosecutors want him to remain in jail because his neo-Nazi beliefs could lead to violence in the future.
But, Hale-Cusanelli’s lawyers argued that he can coexist peacefully with minorities despite his views because he had a black roommate and he was trusted to carry a gun every day at the Navy base and never used it improperly.
