A suspected Three Percenter, who is accused of violating the Capitol, will remain in jail awaiting his trial after his own family members gave officials information leading to his arrest, CNN reported Monday.
Guy Reffitt, a husband and father from Texas, drove to Washington, DC to attend the January 6 pro-Trump rally, armed with an AR-15 rifle and handgun, threatened his family members, boasted about his participation and boasted to fellow militia members that the siege was, according to court documents, just ‘the beginning’.
In those days after returning from his trip to the country’s capital, Reffitt told his children he knew the FBI was ‘watching’ him. On January 11, he told his 18-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter to “erase everything,” citing video evidence of his attendance, legal reports said.
Reffitt told his son, Jackson, that if he crossed the border and reported his father to the police, Reffitt would have no choice but to “do what he had to do,” Jackson told investigators. When Jackson asked his father if he was threatening him, Reffitt apparently responded by saying, “do not put words in my mouth,” the statement said.
According to court documents, Reffitt also threatened his daughter. The girl was using her cell phone to chat with friends when Reffitt told her if she picked him up or posted something about him on social media, she would have ‘crossed the line, betrayed the family’ and he ‘put a bullet through her. ” reads the affidavit.
On the same day, the two children – who rejected the father’s Trump policy – told their mother, Nicole, that Reffitt had threatened them. When Reffitt was confronted in front of his wife, he apparently doubled his warnings, saying that his children would betray him, and that traitors would be shot.
Reffitt’s wife and son told all this and more to FBI officials when agents arrived at their home in Wylie on January 16 to execute a warrant and eventually arrest Reffitt, according to legal reports.
Jackson, meanwhile, has left the family home and now lives in an unknown location, according to court documents. The boy had earlier told CNN that he had informed the FBI of his father.
But despite outlining Reffitt’s behavior following the siege among investigators, family members still supported the patriarch in court and in the media.
Nicole told CNN that Reffitt is a “loving husband and devoted father, loyal friend and passionate patriot.” She maintained that his statements were being ripped out of context, saying that no one had ever felt that they were in real danger.
The couple’s minor daughter and her boyfriend, meanwhile, testified in court on Monday on behalf of Reffitt. Although she told the judge she thinks Reffitt tried to intimidate her and her brother, his daughter said she did not believe he would be dangerous if released, CNN reported.
Reffitt’s attorney also underestimated his client’s threats while protesting for his release in court.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui rejected Reffitt’s release because of prosecutors’ allegations that Reffitt was wearing armor, a helmet, a firearm and plastic shackles, according to the Washington Post at the Capitol.
Faruqui said Reffitt used encrypted communications with fellow three-percent before and after the attack and planned to commit violence.
Insider asked Reffitt’s attorney to comment.
The Three Percenters, a far-right, anti-government group for which Reffitt said he conducted investigations and intelligence, was formed in 2008, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The name has its origins in the myth that only 3% of the colonists took up arms during the Revolutionary War. Members see themselves as “contemporary versions of the revolutionaries fighting a tyrannical American government rather than the British.”
When Faruqui read his decision, it elicited a ‘cry’ from Reffitt’s wife, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend, CNN reported.
Despite their support for Reffitt, it was at least the third time members of his family had given details of his actions to the authorities.