Update:Β "It's a shock" says father of Tucson siblings accused of rioting at U.S. Capitol

A Tucson brother and sister have been arrested, accused of forcing their way past police to breach the U.S. Capitol in the Jan. 6 riot, the FBI says.

Felicia Konold and Cory Konold were among five new defendants charged in connection with the riot, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

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The Konold siblings are accused of marching in a large crowd of Proud Boys, a far-right group that supported former President Donald Trump, to the Capitol building. The crowd members overwhelmed police officers and forced their way inside. Their goal was to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote, according to a special agent with the FBI who wrote an affidavit in support of the complaint.

The Konold siblings were arrested in Arizona on Thursday, says the Justice Department’s website that tracks cases stemming from the Capitol riots. The Phoenix office of the FBI did not respond to an inquiry about whether they were arrested in Tucson.

Robert Konold, their father who lives in Tucson, told the Arizona Daily Star in an interview late Thursday that he is in shock after learning of the arrests from television news.

β€œMy understanding was the kids were just going to go out there with everybody else, do a little peaceful protest,” he said. Felicia is 26 or 27 and Cory is a year younger, he said. β€œIt was good to go support the president,” Robert Konold said, referring to Donald Trump.

The FBI identified Felicia and Cory Konold based on photos and videos taken at the riot, as well as by searching social-media posts and cellphone location data.

Those images show the Konold siblings marching alongside members of the Proud Boys, a group whose members β€œsometimes engage in violence against individuals whom they perceive as threats to their values,” the FBI says.

The FBI says video showed Felicia Konold marching with a large group of Proud Boys on Jan. 6. The crowd chanted β€œWhose streets? Our streets!” The same group eventually arrived at a pedestrian entrance to the Capitol grounds.

Both Felicia and Cory Konold β€œmoved to the front of the crowd during the initial confrontation” with a small number of U.S. Capitol Police standing behind a waist-high metal barrier, the FBI says.

β€œWithin minutes, the crowd overwhelmed the U.S. Capitol Police officers,” according to the complaint. The crowd toppled metal barricades and moved toward the Capitol. Minutes later, Felicia and Cory Konold β€œhad moved past the barrier and placed themselves at or near the front of the crowd at the next police barrier.”

Cory Konold of Tucson was one of five people charged Wednesday in the Jan. 6 siege at the U.S. Capitol.

One of the men also charged on Wednesday, Kansas City resident William Chrestman, faces an additional charge of threatening to assault a federal officer.

At several points, Felicia Konold was seen standing next to Chrestman as they tried to force a police officer to release one of the rioters. Chrestman was dressed in tactical gear and carried a wooden club or ax handle wrapped in a blue flag.

The rioters went on to overwhelm another line of police officers, again with Felicia and Cory Konold at the front of the crowd, and entered the Capitol building, the complaint says.

Police officers tried to lower metal barriers in the tunnels underneath the building, but Felicia Konold and others pushed against the barriers to keep them from closing, it says. Some in the crowd put a podium and a chair under the barriers to prop them open and allow more rioters to enter the building.

During the riot, many in the crowd wore orange tape to identify themselves β€œfor a particular purpose,” the FBI agent wrote. The purpose of the tape is still under investigation.

The Washington Post reported the tape is used as a symbol for the Proud Boys, a group that the Anti-defamation League describes as white supremacists, which group leaders have denied, and which the Southern Poverty Law Center labels as a hate group.

A video posted on social media after the riot, which an FBI agent believed belonged to Felicia Konold, β€œcelebrated that she had just been β€˜recruited’” into a chapter from Kansas City, according to the complaint. In the video, the woman β€œdisplayed a two-sided β€˜challenge coin’ that appears to have markings that designate it as belonging to the Kansas City Proud Boys,” according to the complaint.

In one video posted on social media, the woman the FBI believed was Felicia Konold said she was β€œwatching the news guys” and β€œDude, I can’t even put into words,” according to the complaint.

β€œI never could (unintelligible) have imagined having that much of an influence on the events that unfolded today. Dude, people were willing to follow,” the complaint quotes her as saying.

She described going through three lines of police in the crowd, saying β€œmy feet weren’t even on the ground, all my boys, behind me, holding me up in the air, pushing back,” according to the complaint.

The other defendants charged on Wednesday were Chrestman, Christopher Kuehne and Louis Enrique Colon, according to the complaint. All three are residents of Kansas City.

The five defendants face charges of conspiracy, civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.

The complaint does not include dates of birth or middle names for the defendants.

A Tucson resident named Felicia Breann Konold, born in February 1994, has a pending DUI case in Tucson and requested a jury trial earlier this month for the misdemeanor charge, according to the Pima County Attorney’s Office. The defense lawyer in that case could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Arizona Corporation Commission records list Felicia Konold as the owner of a small business in Tucson.

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Contact reporter Curt Prendergast at 573-4224 or cprendergast@tucson.com