WASHINGTON — A Jan. 6 defendant who was arrested near the Washington home of former President Barack Obama over the summer after former President Donald Trump posted a screenshot that included the address has been hit with five new charges.
A federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment against Taylor Taranto, who, as NBC News reported, was first identified by online sleuths back in 2021 but wasn't arrested until last June when he showed up near Obama's home.
Three of the new charges relate to guns and ammunition that alleged to have been found in Taranto's van when he was arrested. Taranto also faces a felony charge of obstruction of an official proceeding for his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021. He also faces a charge of false information and hoaxes, accused of falsely threatening that he was going to set off an explosive at the National Institute of Standards and Technology before his eventual arrest.After he was identified by online “sedition hunters” but before his arrest, Taranto and another man, David Walls-Kaufman, were sued by the widow of the late Officer Jeffrey Smith. Smith was assaulted on Jan. 6 and died by suicide days after the Capitol attack. His death was ruled to have occurred in the line of duty.
The civil wrongful death lawsuit alleges that Taranto and Walls-Kaufman contributed to Smith's death. Taranto was seen in multiple videos cited in the lawsuit carrying a weaponized cane near Smith during a scuffle between officers and rioters, in which Smith appeared to be assaulted. Smith's own body-worn camera video, released as a result of the lawsuit, also shows a separate incident in which Smith was hit with a flying metal object, an event that occurred hours after he was near Walls-Kaufman and Taranto inside the Capitol.
Taranto showed up at Walls-Kaufman's sentencing on Jan. 6 charges in Washington last June, the month he was arrested outside the Obama residence. Walls-Kaufman, who was not charged with assault but who admitted he "scuffled" with officers, was sentenced to 60 days in federal prison and was released in September, according to Bureau of Prisons records. The civil suit against both men is still pending.
Taranto has been ordered held until trial, and a trial date is set for July. In the lead-up to Taranto's arrest, he was seen on livestreams spending time near the Washington jail where a small percentage of Jan. 6 defendants are being held pretrial and where supporters of the defendants have gathered nightly. The government said Taranto traveled to Washington in response to then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s "offer to produce January 6 video.”
Trump posted a screenshot that included the address of Obama's Washington home on his Truth Social account on June 29. Taranto reposted Trump's post on his own Truth Social account, prosecutors said, and then posted about being outside the residence the same day.
“We got these losers surrounded!" Taranto posted on Telegram, according to prosecutors. "See you in hell, Podesta’s and Obama’s."
Taranto was eventually apprehended near Rock Creek Parkway after he lingered in the woods near Obama's home while livestreaming.
Taranto, a former member of the military, had "successfully worked for many years with a mental health therapist and psychiatrist" through the Veterans Affairs Department, according to a court ruling. But in ordering Taranto held pretrial, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols said he could not "be confident" that mental health treatment plans proposed by Taranto's attorney would provide "sufficient safeguards in light of Taranto's recent escalating behavior."
More than 1,250 defendants have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and prosecutors have secured more than 900 convictions. Hundreds of additional rioters have been identified but not arrested, including a man who appears to have fired a gun in the air during the attack in newly surfaced video.
