Current, former police officers charged in new Proud Boys indictment in Capitol riot

By Spencer S. Hsu,

A father and son, who are current and former Florida police officers, and a North Carolina man have been charged with joining alleged Proud Boys members in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to a new, five-co-defendant indictment unsealed in Washington on Friday.

Kevin “Tito” Tuck, 51, and Nathaniel A. Tuck, 29, of central Florida were arrested and released on $25,000 unsecured bond Thursday by a U.S. magistrate judge in Tampa, court records show.

Edward George Jr. was also arrested Thursday and was scheduled to appear in federal court Friday in Raleigh, according to court records.

The charges bring the number of off-duty law enforcement officers charged in the Capitol mob to at least 20, and the defendants’ ties to several central Florida police agencies highlight the continued pressure on sheriffs and police chiefs nationwide to scrub their ranks of members with links to white supremacist and far-right armed groups.

Of more than 530 arrests, prosecutors also have now charged at least 37 members or associates of the Proud Boys, a group that has a history of violence. Former president Donald Trump famously urged the right-wing group to “stand back and stand by” when asked to denounce white supremacist groups at a presidential debate in September.

U.S. investigators say that at least 65 Proud Boys affiliates joined an on-the-ground communications channel in Washington, led by four men accused of leading others in some of the most destructive, aggressive and earliest attacks to breach police lines and break into the Capitol, forcing Congress to evacuate.

[Prosecutors allege ‘alliance’ between Proud Boys and Oath Keepers on Jan. 6]

An unsealed nine-count indictment dated July 7 charged the Tucks and George with obstructing a joint session of Congress that was meeting to confirm the 2020 election results, trespassing and disorderly conduct. They are not charged with conspiracy, unlike some other Proud Boys.

George was also charged with assaulting police, stealing government property, entering the Senate chamber with Kevin Tuck and engaging in civil disorder with Nathan Tuck.

An attorney for Kevin Tuck did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Nathaniel Tuck’s attorney could not be reached. Information about an attorney for George, 33, who was arrested in Fayetteville, N.C., was not available.

The three men were added to an indictment of previously charged Orlando-area men: Arthur Jackman, who is married to an Orange County, Fla., sheriff’s deputy, and Paul Rae, of adjacent Seminole County.

In their arrest affidavits in late March, the FBI showed a photograph of Rae and Jackman standing in a group of five men including accused Proud Boys conspirator and Florida ringleader Joe Biggs, taken on a terrace outside the Capitol overlooking the mob Jan. 6. The faces of the other men were redacted.

Prosecutors have alleged that Biggs, of Daytona Beach, Fla., was among the first to enter the Capitol during the riot seconds after fellow Proud Boys member Dominic Pezzola led the smashing of a window on the Senate side of the building with a riot shield taken from police.

Biggs, Pezzola and others have pleaded not guilty.

[Read the Jackman affidavit here, photo page 18]

The Tucks’ and George’s relationship with Jackman and Rae was not immediately clear. However, on Wednesday, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office released an internal agency review clearing Jackman’s wife of any wrongdoing. The Longwood Police Department, where Nathaniel Tuck’s wife, Gabriela, is an officer, also issued a statement calling her an employee in good standing against whom it had received no complaint or allegation.

The report quoted from a sworn interview Deputy Sarah Jackman gave April 14 as part of the internal review, in which she said her husband joined the Proud Boys after they met but before they got married, and served as vice president of its Orlando chapter. The deputy said he did not involve her in that part of his life.

“Deputy Jackman rhetorically stated, ‘Do I leave him [Mr. Jackman] because of this group he joined?’ ” the report said.

Arthur Jackman’s attorney did not immediately comment, and the sheriff’s office said Sarah Jackman cannot comment on the report’s findings.

On Thursday, Kevin Tuck resigned from the police department for Windermere, an affluent bedroom community near Orlando, whose residents include several high-profile celebrities and professional athletes.

[U.S. investigating possible ties between Roger Stone, Alex Jones and Capitol rioters]

Police Chief David Ogden said in a statement that the elder Tuck joined the force — after working for police in Longwood, Fla. — as a reserve officer in May 2019, and later became a full-time officer in October of the same year.

“The Windermere Police Department (WPD) has worked tirelessly over the past eight years to build a reputation of serving with Honor, Integrity and Service to our residents, and this arrest doesn’t reflect on the hard work of the men and women of the Windermere Police Department,” Ogden said.

A fellow Windemere officer raised concerns about Kevin Tuck’s conduct at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Tuck told the department he had not entered the Capitol building, and the FBI said it had no information that he did, Ogden said.

The FBI contacted the police chief again July 7 to say it was arresting Tuck, Ogden said. The chief said Tuck did not notify superiors of his out-of-state travel or that he would be attending the event, adding that the department will not comment further on the FBI’s or its internal investigation.

Apopka, Fla., police said it employed Nathaniel Tuck as a full-time officer from March 2018 to August 2020 and became aware of and cooperated with the FBI’s investigation.

Longwood police said the FBI confirmed that Gabriela Tuck, an elementary school resource officer, was not a suspect in its investigation. The department said that Tuck had been recognized several times for her outstanding work, that there is no indication she was involved in the activities leading to Nathan or Kevin Tuck’s arrests, and that if any wrongdoing by her were to come to light, the department would investigate as it would any officer.

[Read the superseding indictment here]

In a statement, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said its inquiry to determine whether Sarah Jackman violated any of its policies “found no wrongdoing on the part of Deputy Jackman” and said “employees of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office are prohibited from belonging to any group that exhibits extremist ideology.”

The office called the Proud Boys part of the alt-right, which it defined as “an ideological grouping associated with extreme conservative or reactionary viewpoints, characterized by a rejection of mainstream politics and [online dissemination] of deliberately controversial content.”

In her interview, Sarah Jackman described the Proud Boys organization as “pro-American, pro-family, and very patriotic,” saying the men “spend time together and attend Bible studies,” according to the sheriff’s office report. The report said she stated it was “not a terrorist organization, not a hate group, nor a right-wing extremists group.”

The deputy, a member of the sheriff’s office training unit and videographer for the agency’s Emergency Response Team, was at work Jan. 6 and knew that her husband was in Washington to hear Trump speak but not that he went to the Capitol, the report said.

The FBI came to their home Jan. 19, but Arthur Jackman told her it was related to Proud Boys activity “and did not elaborate,” the report said.

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