Las Vegas man arrested, accused of participating in Capitol riot

A Las Vegas man has been arrested in connection with the attacks on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Mario Gonzalez, 51, was arrested Monday by the FBI in Las Vegas and charged with several felonies, including assaulting, resisting or impeding officers, and obstructing law enforcement during civil disorder, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release.

According to court documents, Gonzalez traveled from Las Vegas to Washington and was among a group of rioters on Capitol grounds.

He entered the scaffolding around the inauguration stage where police were working to stop rioters from going up stairs to the Upper West Terrace, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Gonzalez filmed himself during the altercation with police on the stairs, and he took “selfie-style recordings” of himself with his cellphone, the office said.

He then carried a fire extinguisher out of the scaffolding and sprayed it in the direction of police, who then deployed a “chemical riot control agent” in his direction, which caused him to drop the extinguisher and go into the crowd, court documents said.

According to the U.S. attorney’s office, more than 1,265 people have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack in nearly all 50 states. Over 440 of those people have faced felony charges of assaulting or impeding law enforcement.

Past Las Vegas arrests

Four other men have been arrested in the Las Vegas Valley in connection with the attack. Las Vegas resident Nathaniel DeGrave was arrested with Ronald Sandlin of Tennessee on Jan. 28, 2021, near DeGrave’s Las Vegas apartment.

DeGrave, Sandlin and Idaho resident Josiah Colt drove together to Washington to participate in the Capitol riot, according to court records. The U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia said the three were caught on surveillance footage inside the Capitol during the attack and wore tactical gear and carried bear spray.

DeGrave pleaded guilty to charges of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding in June 2022. He was sentenced to three years in prison in May 2023.

Sandlin, who recorded himself smoking marijuana inside the Capitol Rotunda during the riot and arranged the three men’s trip to Washington, was sentenced to more than five years in prison in December 2022. He pleaded guilty two months earlier to conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and assaulting, resisting or impeding officers.

Las Vegas business owner Brandon Dillard was charged in 2023 with knowingly disrupting the orderly conduct of the government, entering a restricted building, parading or demonstrating in a Capitol building, and disorderly conduct in the Capitol.

A federal complaint filed in 2022 said that Dillard was identified by several sources: FBI agents said they identified him in leaked video from the attack; a “former associate” confirmed his identity in photos from the attack to federal investigators; and he was included in a Las Vegas Review-Journal article from 2017 where he appears in a photo with his mother.

Dillard pleaded guilty in connection with the attack in November 2023 and faces eight to 14 months in prison, NBC News reported.

Bradley Nelson of North Las Vegas was arrested in March 2023 after he was shown on security cameras walking through hallways in the Capitol and admitted he participated in the riot to detectives in June 2021.

Nelson also posted about his participation on social media. He wrote in an X (then Twitter) post that he was in the Capitol Rotunda during the riot.

He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, according to NPR’s Jan. 6 Capitol riot cases database.

Anyone with tips related to the attacks may call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or go to tips.fbi.gov.

Contact Taylor Lane at tlane@reviewjournal.com.