A Virginia man who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been charged with felony burglary months after President Trump pardoned him.
Zachary Jordan Alam, 33, of Centreville, was arrested May 9 in Henrico County, police said in a statement.
According to law enforcement, officers responded to a call of breaking and entering on Arthurwood Place near Creighton Road, where the homeowner said an unknown man came in through a back door.
“The man took several items before he was observed by people in the home and was asked to leave,” police said. “Officers located the man in a nearby neighborhood and arrested him.”
The Washington Times reached out to Mr. Alam’s attorney, Dannie Sutton, for comment.
Mr. Alam was charged with residential breaking and entering and vandalism. A preliminary hearing for the burglary case is scheduled for late June in Henrico County court.
During the riot, Mr. Alam smashed the door panel that rioter Ashli Babbitt tried to breach before police fatally shot her.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, Maryland Democrat, said police had called Mr. Alam the “most violent” of the Jan. 6 defendants.
“This was a guy who was pardoned by President Trump, now robbing houses in Virginia,” he said.
Mr. Raskin said Mr. Alam broke the window pane on the door in the House that Ashli Babbitt then tried to climb through, when she was shot to death by a U.S. Capitol Police officer.
Mr. Alam’s arrest happened just weeks before the federal government is expected to pay out about $5 million to Babbitt’s family to settle a lawsuit brought last year by her estate initially seeking $30 million.
Months before his subsequent run in with the law, Mr. Alam was among the over 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters who received a pardon or commutation of their prison sentences from Mr. Trump on Jan. 20, his first day in office.
Mr. Alam was sentenced to eight years in prison last November by U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, who described the Virginia man’s actions in the Capitol as not those “of a patriot.”
“To say otherwise is delusional,” he said.
Mr. Alam helped other Jan. 6 rioters enter the building through a smashed window and, once inside the Capitol, he screamed profanities at the police as he made his way toward the House side of the building.
At that point, he gathered with other fellow rioters outside the Speaker’s Lobby, which led to the House floor, but the wood-paned glass doors were locked and barricaded from the inside and guarded by non-uniformed police.
Mr. Alam smashed through three window panes on the doors of the Speaker’s Lobby and later shattered the glass panes of the door with a helmet another rioter gave him.
Steven Metcalf, his defense attorney at the trial, described Mr. Alam as a troubled loner who “just wanted to fit in somewhere because he has been rejected by everyone else in his life.”
— This article was based in part on wire service reports.
