Christopher Worrell (via FBI court filings).
Federal authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a Florida man who has apparently disappeared ahead of his sentencing for assaulting police during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Christopher Worrell, 51, was convicted in May of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon, obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress, and physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings, along with other offenses. According to prosecutors, Worrell unloaded a canister of "pepper gel" on a line of police officers trying to hold back the crowd of Donald Trump supporters who were angry over Joe Biden's win in the 2020 presidential election and wanted to keep Trump in power.
He later bragged that he had "deployed a whole can" and was "f—— handing it to them," the Justice Department says.
He was convicted after a five-day bench trial before Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. In announcing the verdict, Lamberth called Worrell's defense — that he had been pepper spraying other violent rioters, not police officers — "preposterous" and that Worrell's testimony at trial 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."
Lamberth set sentencing for Aug. 18. However, docket entries show that the hearing was canceled just days before — and that Worrell is apparently nowhere to be found.
"The Sentencing currently scheduled for 8/18/2023 at 2:30pm is hereby VACATED and will be rescheduled by the Court at a later date," a docket order signed by Lamberth on Aug. 15 said.
Two days later, on Aug. 17, Lamberth signed an order unsealing a bench warrant issued for Worrell on Aug. 15 — the same day the judge canceled the sentencing hearing.
Worrell was facing significant prison time. In a sentencing memo, prosecutors requested a sentence of 168 months behind bars, or 14 years. That sentence was "at the low end of the applicable guidelines," which reached up to 210 months, or 17 1/2 years, according to the DOJ.
Worrell had sought a sentence of 12 to 18 months behind bars.
In their sentencing request, prosecutors said that Worrell had financially profited from his crimes, and sought a fine of $181,000, depending on the "accounting of his fundraising."
Although Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, excoriated Worrell for his trial testimony, he had previously seemed not entirely unsympathetic to the defendant: In October 2021, Lamberth found two D.C. jail officials in contempt of court for failing to comply with an order to provide notes about Worrell's medical care while in detention.
Worrell suffered from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer that generally develops in the lymph nodes. With appropriate treatment, it is curable in many cases. Lamberth had allowed Worrell to remain on pretrial release and pursue medical treatment.
"The government seeks a low-end sentence only because of Worrell's ongoing medical conditions," the DOJ's sentencing memo noted.
Worrell had traveled to Washington, D.C., from Florida to march with other members of the so-called "Hurricane Coast Zone 5" chapter of the Proud Boys extremist group, whose leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol attack.
In addition to the pepper gel attack, Worrell and another Proud Boys member also shoved two U.S. Capitol Police officers who were trying to defend a staircase leading to the Upper West Terrace of the Capitol, prosecutors say. These assaults "collapsed the police line," allowing a large group of rioters to break through and ultimately reach the Capitol, "where they became the first group of rioters to break into the building itself."
Worrell's defense attorney William Shipley did not immediately respond to Law&Crime's request for comment.