Wall of Corroborators
He is not alone.
Every name on this page is someone who went on the record about the same broken system Ryan Nichols documents. Fellow January 6 detainees signed witness statements. Federal officers and a DC DOC Chief acknowledged the grievance process is broken. The pattern is not one man's story — it is the documented experience of a population.
This is a pattern, not one man's story. Tap — no signup.
Federal acknowledgment
The IGP is broken — on the record
Federal officers and DC DOC leadership who have acknowledged the grievance process is broken in writing or notarized statements.
Chief Anderton
Chief, Detention Operations · DC DOC
Named in the same notarized witness statement (j6s8-090) as having acknowledged that the IGP grievance process is broken.
Deputy Criego
United States Marshal · U.S. Marshals Service
Met with Ryan and codefendant Robert Morss regarding mold inspection inside the DC DOC facility. Documented in cell notes (October 2021).
U.S. Marshal Lamont Ruffin
United States Marshal · U.S. Marshals Service
Named in Defendant Nichols' Supplement to the Motion for Pretrial Release (Doc 177, 10/28/22) as Exhibit C. Tied to the attorney-client privileged drive issue and the inter-facility transfers.
U.S. Marshal Ricky Rice
Deputy U.S. Marshal · U.S. Marshals Service
Named in a notarized witness statement (j6s8-090) co-signed by Peter Stager and James McGrew confirming that the DC DOC Inmate Grievance Procedure (IGP) is broken. Independent federal acknowledgment of administrative dysfunction.
12 fellow January 6 detainees
Co-defendants and pod-mates who went on the record
Each signed at least one statement, letter, or affidavit documenting conditions and misconduct that match what Ryan filed.
Billy Chrestman
J6 case participant / Sibick statement signatory
Billy Chrestman, born William Chrestman, is a U.S. Army veteran and union sheet metal worker from Olathe, Kansas. FACT: service first, then the trades. The Army from 1992 to 1996, then years as a union sheet metal worker in the Kansas City area (WUSA9; sentencing memo filed in federal court). Court filings and local coverage describe a working man with deep roots in his community (KSHB; Union Leader). He also knows the inside of this system better than almost anyone. FACT: Chrestman spent roughly three years in pretrial detention before his case resolved (Union Leader). Court records describe him at the Capitol on January 6 carrying a wooden club or axe handle wrapped with a blue flag, and his attorneys argued in filings that he and others believed they were following the President's lead that day. FACT: he was a signatory on the October 26, 2021, Thomas Sibick witness statements from the D.C. jail, documents preserved in this archive. Dubbed "#axehole" online by strangers who never met him, Chrestman is a Kansas man who served his country, worked a trade for years, and then spent longer locked up before trial than most Americans ever will. WHERE THINGS STAND: FACT, in October 2023 he pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding and threatening a federal officer (DOJ). FACT, on January 12, 2024, he was sentenced to 55 months in prison, with credit for the years already served (DOJ; Washington Post; NBC News). FACT, on January 20, 2025, the clemency proclamation covered his case, and Billy Chrestman came home to Kansas. CASE RECORD U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Pleaded guilty October 2023 to obstruction of an official proceeding and threatening a federal officer. Sentenced January 12, 2024, to 55 months. Clemency proclamation January 20, 2025. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.
Christopher Quaglin
J6 co-defendant
Christopher Joseph Quaglin is a journeyman electrician and foreman from North Brunswick, New Jersey. A tradesman, a husband, a father of a young son. (FACT: WUSA9; The Hill; GiveSendGo family page) His case became one of the hardest-fought detention stories of the entire January 6 docket. Arrested in April 2021, he was held in pretrial detention for roughly three years, his lawyers said about two of those years were spent in solitary confinement, and he was moved between facilities again and again. His legal team filed a habeas petition over his treatment in custody. (FACT: WUSA9; THEIR ACCOUNT: American Greatness; AmericanPOWs.com) He was convicted in a stipulated bench trial in July 2023 of 14 counts, including assaults on officers, and sentenced in May 2024 to 12 years. That is the court record, and it stays on this page. (FACT: WUSA9; The Hill) On January 20, 2025, he was pardoned in the presidential clemency covering January 6 defendants and walked free after nearly four years inside. (FACT) Here is the part worth sharing: he did not disappear. By 2025 he was speaking publicly as an advocate for prison reform, turning the worst years of his life into a mission. (THEIR ACCOUNT: WND, "From J6 survivor to prison reformer," March 2025) His supporters keep a legal-fund page for his family. (NEEDS AUTHENTICATION: GiveSendGo) THE CASE RECORD Case No. 1:21-cr-40, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Arrested 4/7/21. Charged via second superseding indictment 4/16/21; third superseding indictment 6/16/21. Held in pretrial detention. Convicted July 2023 in a stipulated bench trial of 14 counts, including 12 felonies. Sentenced May 2024 to 12 years. Pardoned January 20, 2025. DOJ page: https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/defendants/quaglin-christopher-joseph This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.
Dan Caldwell
J6 detainee / OC spray victim
Named victim in the November 11, 2021 OC spray attack on C-2B pod.
James McGrew
J6 detainee / witness
James Burton McGrew is a Mississippi-born Marine veteran sentenced to prison for assaulting officers on January 6. FACT: James McGrew has Biloxi, Mississippi roots and a stretch living in Carlsbad, California before his arrest; he was taken into custody in the Glendale, Arizona area. (WXXV News 25; DOJ; 12 News) His family describes him on a public fundraiser as a third-generation Marine, "brought up to love and fear God," a father of one who helps care for his mother. (THEIR ACCOUNT: family GiveSendGo appeal, cited by The Daily Beast) FACT: His January 6 case was one of the serious ones. According to an FBI affidavit, he left a California sober-living home and crossed into Mexico while agents searched for him, before he was ultimately taken into custody. (FACT: The Daily Beast, citing an FBI search warrant affidavit) He pleaded guilty on May 13, 2022, to assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers, and on January 20, 2023, was sentenced to 78 months. (DOJ; American Gulag) We do not minimize the court record; it is stated plainly here. FACT: He did not fight the charge at trial; he pleaded guilty and accepted the sentence rather than take the case before a jury. For anyone searching his name and asking what he actually did: he admitted to assaulting law enforcement officers during the Capitol breach, and the eighty-plus-month sentence reflects that admitted conduct, not an allegation he contested. WHERE THINGS STAND: On January 20, 2025, two years to the day after his sentencing, President Trump granted clemency to January 6 defendants, and James was among those released. (American Gulag) He served hard time and walked out under a presidential clemency. What he builds from here is the part still being written. His family and supporters are welcome to add it. CASE RECORD Case No. 1:21-cr-398, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Arrested 05/28/2021 in the Glendale, Arizona area. Indicted 06/11/2021. Superseding indictment 10/29/2021. Pleaded guilty 05/13/2022. Sentenced 01/20/2023 to 78 months incarceration, 36 months supervised release, $5,000 fine, $2,000 restitution. Clemency granted 01/20/2025. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.
Jeffrey McKellop
J6 co-defendant / 70% disabled veteran
Jeffrey McKellop is a Fishersville, Virginia man who gave the U.S. Army more than 20 years of his life before January 6 ever happened. FACT: McKellop retired in 2010 after serving with the 2nd Ranger Battalion and the 3rd Special Forces Group, a Green Beret with three Bronze Stars (Army Times). After retiring he worked as a military contractor supporting U.S. government agencies. FACT: His case was one of the hardest fought on the entire January 6 docket. He faced 16 felony counts, including assault on officers with a dangerous weapon and civil disorder. He pleaded not guilty and spent years fighting it, much of that time in pretrial detention after being denied bond in March 2021 (Army Times; WUSA9). Reporting described the delays in his case, over DOJ objection, as drawing criticism from his own defense as prejudicial. FACT: The case never reached a jury verdict against him. Following the January 20, 2025 presidential clemency, a federal judge dismissed the charges against McKellop with prejudice, meaning they can never be brought again. WHERE THINGS STAND: More than a year after clemency, reporting on McKellop describes a veteran still fighting to be heard about the years he spent in custody before the case was ever resolved, and about restoring what those years cost him (Gateway Pundit, 2026; American Gulag). NEEDS AUTHENTICATION: a GiveSendGo page titled "Jeffrey McKellop US Army Special Forces Retired" has collected support for his defense and family. We have not independently verified who operates it. CASE RECORD Case No. 1:21-cr-268, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Arrested March 17, 2021. Initial appearance March 18, 2021. Indicted March 31, 2021. Arraigned April 12, 2021, pleaded not guilty to all counts. Held in pretrial custody. Dismissed with prejudice following the January 20, 2025 clemency. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.
Jessica Watkins
J6 co-defendant
Jessica Watkins is a U.S. Army veteran and small-business owner from Woodstock, Ohio, a woman who served her country in uniform and then poured herself into her community back home. Before any headline, here is the record worth leading with: Jessica Watkins served in the United States Army. Back in Ohio, she and her partner ran the Jolly Rogers Bar and Grill, a pirate-themed bar in the small town of Woodstock, the kind of place where a veteran becomes a fixture of Main Street. Here are the receipts on her case: Watkins was among the Oath Keepers group prosecuted over January 6, 2021. A Washington, D.C. jury acquitted her of the top charge, seditious conspiracy, but convicted her of four other felony counts, and in May 2023 she was sentenced to eight and a half years. She served hard time away from the community she called home. Then came clemency. On January 20, 2025, President Trump commuted Jessica Watkins's sentence to time served, and she walked free. She is counted among 'The 14' whose sentences were commuted rather than fully pardoned, and the effort to fully clear those names continues. An Army veteran and Ohio bar owner who served, came home, and kept standing. Case record: United States v. Rhodes, et al., Case No. 1:22-cr-15, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Acquitted of seditious conspiracy; convicted on four other counts Nov. 29, 2022; sentence commuted to time served Jan. 20, 2025. Sourcing: Army veteran and Jolly Rogers Bar and Grill co-owner in Woodstock, Ohio, FACT (Wikipedia; AOL/Army vet report). Acquittal on seditious conspiracy, conviction on four counts, 8.5-year sentence, FACT (Washington Post; Spokesman-Review). Jan. 20, 2025 commutation to time served, FACT (qnotes). This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.
Jonathan Gennaro "Jon" Mellis
J6 case participant / Sibick statement signatory
Jonathan Gennaro Mellis goes by Jon. Williamsburg, Virginia. A man whose supporters kept writing his name on lists and letters for three straight years. Jon Mellis was arrested February 16, 2021 and held in federal custody through years of pretrial litigation before he was ever sentenced. [FACT, DOJ and court record] People did not forget him. A GiveSendGo campaign was published in his name, and the American POWs project maintained a prisoner page for Jonathan Mellis while he was inside. [FACT, givesendgo.com/jonmellis and americanpows.com/prisoners/jonathan-mellis/] That is what community looks like when the news cycle moves on and a man is still sitting in a cell. THE LEGAL FIGHT On June 12, 2023, Jonathan Gennaro Mellis pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon under 18 U.S.C. 111(a)(1) and (b). [FACT, DOJ] On December 20, 2023 he was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss to 51 months in prison, 36 months of supervised release, and a $20,000 fine. [FACT, DOJ press release and 13News Now] A charge is a charge and a plea is a plea. This archive does not restate the record as anything more or less than what the court entered. THE CLEMENCY On January 20, 2025, a presidential proclamation granted full pardons for offenses related to events at or near the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The Office of the Pardon Attorney FOIA release of pardon certificate recipients lists JONATHAN GENNARO MELLIS by name. [FACT] The conviction is pardoned. The Williamsburg, Virginia man came home. CASE RECORD Case number: 1:21-cr-00206-EGS Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Arrested: February 16, 2021 Disposition: Guilty plea 6/12/2023; sentenced 12/20/2023; full January 6 pardon 1/20/2025 DOJ: justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/virginia-man-sentenced-assaulting-law-enforcement-during-jan-6-capitol-breach NEEDS AUTHENTICATION: Jon Mellis's trade, military or first responder service, and family details are not yet documented here. If you have receipts, this page has room. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.
Kash Kelly
J6 case participant / Sibick statement signatory
Kash Lee Kelly is an anti-violence mentor from Hammond, Indiana, and one of the January 6 defendants pardoned in 2025. Kelly grew up inside the Latin Kings on the streets of Northwest Indiana. He got out, and spent his adult years working to keep kids off the same streets that nearly took him. Local coverage backs that up: anti-violence work, mentoring, and speaking events in his community (FACT: NWI Times, Hoodline). WHAT HAPPENED ON JANUARY 6: Kelly went to Washington and ended up inside a restricted area of the Capitol. His federal case was small in the end. He pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor count, parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building. He was sentenced to 60 days incarceration and $500 restitution (FACT: DOJ, NPR Jan. 6 archive). WHAT HE SAYS: Kelly has said publicly that the judge in a separate, pre-existing drug case sentenced him harder because of January 6 (THEIR ACCOUNT: The Epoch Times). WHERE THINGS STAND: On January 20, 2025, President Trump's clemency proclamation covered January 6 offenses, including Kelly's. He's back home in Northwest Indiana, speaking publicly, including at a Lake Station church (FACT: NWI Times). Supporters ran a petition during his case titled "Kash Lee Kelly Deserves Freedom" (Change.org). CASE RECORD Case No. 1:22-cr-208 (initially filed as 1:21-mj-67), U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Charge: parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building (misdemeanor). Arrested: January 21, 2021. Information filed: June 7, 2022. Pleaded guilty: November 10, 2022. Sentenced: November 10, 2022, to 60 days incarceration, $500 restitution. Clemency: full pardon, January 20, 2025. WHAT THIS DOES NOT PROVE: parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building is the lowest-level charge on the federal board for January 6. Kelly was never charged with assault, a weapon, or property damage. Charge severity matters, and this archive states it plainly rather than letting a headline do the talking. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.
Ronnie Sandlin
J6 case participant / Sibick statement signatory
Ronnie Sandlin is a Tennessee man from the Memphis area. [FACT] His January 6 case was one of the serious ones, and we do not paper over that here. He was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, felony offenses, and he served real time in federal prison. [FACT] But the story does not end at the sentence. On January 20, 2025, President Trump granted him clemency, along with roughly 1,500 other January 6 defendants, and he walked out of prison a free man. [FACT] Whatever a person believes about that day, his debt as the court measured it has been closed. [FACT] --- The court record: Case No. 1:21-cr-88, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Arrested 1/28/2021. Pleaded guilty 9/30/2022. Sentenced 12/9/2022 to 63 months incarceration, 36 months supervised release, $20,000 fine, $2,000 restitution. Clemency granted 1/20/2025. [FACT] This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.
Scott Kevin Fairlamb
Pardoned January 6 defendant · detention, plea, sentence and post-conviction record
Scott Kevin Fairlamb is a gym owner from Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, a former professional mixed martial artist who fought under the name "Wildman," and a small-business man who spent years teaching regular people in his community how to be a little stronger than they thought they were. Before January 6, north Jersey knew Scott Fairlamb two ways. As a fighter with a pro MMA record on the books. And as the guy who opened Fairlamb Fit and kept the lights on for his members through the hardest stretch a small gym ever faced. (FACT - CNN, Sherdog fighter record, Sports Politika.) He is the kind of man who built something with his hands and his name on the door. That does not disappear because of what the government charged. THE LEGAL FIGHT. Scott Fairlamb was arrested January 22, 2021. On August 6, 2021 he pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding and to assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers. He was sentenced November 10, 2021 to 41 months and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution, becoming the first January 6 defendant sentenced on an assault count. (FACT - DOJ press releases, CNN, CBS News.) His direct appeal was later voluntarily dismissed, and Section 2255 relief was denied February 1, 2023. (FACT - court dockets.) On January 20, 2025, Scott Fairlamb received a full presidential pardon under the January 6 clemency grant. (FACT - White House proclamation; DOJ FOIA pardon certificate list.) Since coming home he has talked openly about pretrial detention and solitary confinement, and about what four years of a federal case does to a family and a business. (THEIR ACCOUNT - his published letter via Patriot Freedom Project; recorded interviews.) CASE RECORD. Case number 1:21-cr-00120-RCL-1, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Arrested January 22, 2021. Pardoned January 20, 2025. Charges are charges, and the record above is the record - nothing here softens it and nothing here goes past it. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you - or your family - claiming it is free, forever.
Stephen Michael Ayres
January 6 defendant; House Select Committee witness
CASE OVERVIEW Stephen Michael Ayres is an Ohio husband, father, and longtime cabinet-company employee whose January 6 case was No. 1:21-cr-00156-JDB before Judge John D. Bates in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The government originally charged four offenses. Those were charging-stage allegations. On June 8, 2022, Ayres pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds. On September 22, 2022, Judge Bates sentenced him to 24 months of probation, 100 hours of community service, and $500 restitution. Those procedural facts are not judgments about his overall character. FIRSTHAND RECORD Ayres gave a transcribed House Select Committee interview on June 22, 2022 and testified publicly on July 12, 2022. He described himself as a family man and working man who had spent nearly 20 years at a cabinet company. He said social media and the rally influenced his decision to travel to Washington, that he had not initially planned to go to the Capitol, and that he later reconsidered views he held at the time. He also said the prosecution affected his employment, home, and family life. These are Ayres's attributed statements, not independent archive findings. PARDON AND SOURCE BOUNDARIES The DOJ Office of the Pardon Attorney lists AYRES, STEPHEN MICHAEL among people issued a certificate under the January 20, 2025 pardon proclamation. The archive preserves the plea and sentence alongside the later full pardon. Committee characterizations, government allegations, and Ayres's firsthand statements remain separately labeled. Editorial analysis about Biden-era DOJ weaponization is distinct from the underlying source record. RESEARCH PRIORITIES Still needed: native complaint, indictment, plea agreement, statement of offense, judgment, sentencing transcript, individual pardon certificate, complete June 17 interview, and a photograph with verified provenance and reuse rights.
Tim Hale
J6 case participant / Sibick statement signatory
Tim Hale is the name the J6 community knows him by. Court records say Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a former U.S. Army reservist from Colts Neck, New Jersey, who worked as a security contractor at Naval Weapons Station Earle. FACT: He was a signatory on the October 26, 2021 Thomas Sibick witness statements from the DC jail, documents preserved in this archive. NPR reported on the unit where the J6 detainees, Hale included, were held together pretrial. (Source: NPR; NBC News) FACT: In May 2022, a jury convicted him on all five counts, including felony obstruction of an official proceeding. He was sentenced in September 2022 to 48 months and was released from prison in January 2024. Much of the national coverage of his case centered on prosecutors' characterization of his personal views, characterizations he has disputed in his own interviews. (Source: NPR; NBC News) FACT: After the Supreme Court narrowed the federal obstruction statute in Fischer v. United States, the D.C. Circuit vacated his obstruction conviction on December 19, 2024, and sent the case back for resentencing on the remaining counts. Before that resentencing happened, the government itself moved to dismiss the whole case, and the court granted that dismissal with prejudice on January 24, 2025, four days after the clemency proclamation. (Source: NPR January 6 Defendants Database; CourtListener docket) THEIR ACCOUNT: Since his release he has told his own story of the DC jail, what he calls the "DC Gulag," in long-form podcast interviews. NEEDS AUTHENTICATION. (Source: Apple Podcasts, 2024) CASE RECORD U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Charges: Obstruction of an Official Proceeding and Aiding and Abetting; Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds; Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds; Impeding Ingress and Egress; Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building; Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building Disposition: Arrested 1/17/21. Convicted at trial 5/27/22. Sentenced 9/22/22 to 48 months, 36 months supervised release, $2,000 restitution. Released 1/24. Obstruction conviction vacated on appeal 12/19/24. Case dismissed with prejudice 1/24/25. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.