A Naples man and alleged Proud Boy was found guilty of multiple felony and misdemeanor charges on May 12, 2023, for his involvement in the January 6, 2021, Capitol breach.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Christopher Worrell, 51, and others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress during the counting of electoral votes related to the presidential election.

On January 6, 2021, Worrell was a member of the “Hurricane Coast Zone 5” Proud Boys Chapter. That morning, Worrell dressed in a tactical vest and carried pepper gel while marching with other Proud Boys from the Washington Monument to the United States Capitol. He passed U.S. Capitol Police officers and warned them not to resist, saying “honor your oaths, on your knees,” and “don’t make us go against you.”  Worrell and other “Zone 5” members breached the restricted perimeter and reached the West Plaza of the Capitol at around 1:00 p.m.  He then filmed himself calling the U.S. Capitol Police officers “scum,” “piece[s] of “s***,” and “commies,” among other expletives and insults.

At around 1:31 p.m., Worrell sprayed pepper gel at a line of police officers trying to defend the Capitol from the mob on the West Plaza. Worrell later bragged that he had “deployed a whole can” and was “f****** handing it to them.”  A photojournalist present at the Capitol witnessed Worrell spraying toward the officers, and took a photograph that captured the moment, court officials said.

Approximately 20 minutes later, Worrell’s fellow Zone 5 Proud Boy member Daniel Scott shoved two USCP officers who were defending a staircase leading to the Upper West Terrace of the Capitol.  Mr. Scott’s assaults collapsed the police line, allowing a large group of rioters to flood their way up the stairs to the Capitol building, where they became the first group of rioters to break into the building itself. Worrell and other members of Zone 5 celebrated Scott’s assault, with Worrell turning the camera on himself to say: “Yeah! Taking the Capitol!”

Worrell was arrested on March 12, 2021, in Naples, Florida. He was found guilty of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon, obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, and obstructing, impeding, or interfering with officers during the commission of a civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, engaging in physical violence with a deadly or dangerous weapon all felonies, and an act of physical violence in the Capitol Grounds or Buildings, a misdemeanor.

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According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the verdict followed a five-day bench trial before U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth stated that Worrell’s defense that he had been pepper spraying other violent rioters, instead of U.S. Capitol Police officers, was “preposterous” and that his testimony presented an “unbelievable” and “false narrative” that was “undermined by the contradictions and post-January 6 false statements identified by the government during Mr. Worrell’s cross-examination and the government’s rebuttal case.”

Worrell faces up to 20 years in prison for each felony count, plus potential financial penalties.

Judge Lamberth scheduled Worrell’s sentencing for August 18, 2023.