Two New York-area pickup artists are arrested for participating in Capitol riots
Two New York-area pickup artists and self-styled dating gurus were arrested this week for their participation in the deadly January 6 Capitol insurrection.
Samuel Fisher, 35, was detained by police in Manhattan on Wednesday, accused of traveling to Washington DC with a car full of weapons.
On Facebook, the Manhattan-based businessman posted in the aftermath of the riot: ‘People died but it was f****** great if you ask me.’
Patrick Stedman, 32, was arrested on Thursday by New Jersey officers. The ‘dating and relationship strategy’ expert, who lives at home with his parents in Haddonfield, NJ, offers ‘daily emails on sex and female psychology’.
Stedman barged his way into the Capitol and made it as far as Nancy Pelosi’s office, where he sat at her desk. He wrote on Twitter: ‘I was pretty much in the first wave, and we broke down the doors and climbed up the back part of the Capitol building and got all the way into the chambers.’
The pair are among 120 people federally charged over the riots, in which five people died. Among them are military veterans, bartenders and social workers from coast to coast.
Samuel Fisher among a sea of Trump supporters on the day of Capitol riot on January 6 – in a photo which the FBI says is evidence that he was illegally in a restricted area
Patrick Stedman, a 32-year-old ‘dating guru’ from New Jersey, was arrested on Thursday
Stedman and Fishers’ careers are among the more unusual, however.
Fisher, under the alias Brad Holiday, runs a YouTube channel entitled: ‘Helping men get high value girls’, and a website, LuxLifeDating.
‘We help men learn to pick up girls,’ the website – which appears to be blocked – states.
‘Are you a man struggling to pick up women? My name is Brad Holiday and me and Jason James help men get high value girls using my predictable pick-up system. If you’re interested in getting more girls with predictability click the button below to learn more.’
Fisher, under the alias Brad Holiday, offered advice for men ‘struggling to pick up women’
In one video, he notes the ‘healthy relationship’ between Donald and Melania Trump, and approvingly says that they met when Trump — ‘such a boss,’ he remarks — ditched a date and ‘cold approached’ her.
Fisher was cornered by armed agents and handcuffed on a Manhattan sidewalk two weeks after the riot.
He was remanded in custody after a bail hearing on Wednesday where prosecutors said firearms, ammunition and a bulletproof vest were found at the home where he was arrested.
Fisher is accused of unlawful entry to the Capitol grounds and disorderly conduct once he got there, but his lawyer says there is no evidence he was ever actually inside the Capitol.
Fisher allegedly posted this image of a stash of weapons that he had with him in Washington before the Capitol riot. The FBI affidavit did not say whether he took them to the Capitol
Footage taken from a Manhattan window, published by the New York Post, showed the moment that Fisher was surrounded on Wednesday.
‘Don’t move, put your hands out,’ one of the agents shouts as Fisher lies on his stomach with a gun pointed directly at him.
The footage filmed by a neighbor shows Fisher’s hands being cuffed behind his back before other federal agents appear in view.
The arrest came hours before the Biden inauguration which the mob incited by Trump on January 6 had desperately tried to stop from taking place.
According to an affidavit by an FBI agent, Fisher had complained about supposed election fraud in online posts before the riot and said that ‘we must stand up to these people and take our world back… it’s time to bring the pain upon them’.
Fisher allegedly posted this picture with the caption: ‘Can’t wait to bring a liberal back to this freedom palace’
His other online comments allegedly included: ‘They can’t arrest us all man’… ‘gotta stand up’… ‘bring ur guns sr’… ‘I’d exercise my 2A [Second Amendment] legal rights there’.
Hours before the riot, authorities say, Fisher said he was in DC and voiced fears that ‘it could be over’ if ‘millions of patriots don’t show up with guns’, adding that ‘the swamp and pedophiles in Hollywood are immortal’.
On January 6, he allegedly posted a picture of a stash of firearms after leaving comments on Facebook including ‘gotta make a stand’ and ‘not gonna be intimidated’.
He subsequently added that ‘if it kicks off I got a vest and my rifle’, according to the testimony by an FBI agent.
Under his pseudonym of Brad Holiday, he also posted a blog on January 6 warning that ‘we aren’t looking to fight or hurt anyone… but the odds that this is going to be solved any other way… is next to nothing’.
In the blog post, he laid out three possibilities for what might happen:
– ‘Trump has an Ace card up his sleeve. He plays it. The Deep State is arrested and hanged on the White House lawn for the High Treason’
– ‘Trump fails, Biden gets installed… Patriots are ineffective and we live under the rule of the elite pedophiles and Chinese communist party’
– ‘Trump fails, Biden gets installed… Patriots show up in the millions with guns. They execute all treasonous members of government and rebuild’.
Once the chaos began, Fisher posted a picture of himself among a sea of Trump supporters in what authorities say was a restricted area.
The FBI agent said it was ‘evident’ that Fisher had entered the Capitol grounds ‘with intent to impede, disrupt, and disturb the orderly conduct of the certification proceedings underway inside the Capitol’.
Trump supporters march through the Capitol Rotunda during the January 6 invasion of Congress. Fisher’s lawyer says there is no evidence he made it inside the Capitol
After an informant tipped off the FBI, investigators found Fisher’s alleged posts including one after the event where he apparently wrote that ‘seeing cops literally run… was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life’.
‘People died . . . but it was f***ing great if you ask me . . . i got tear gassed and pepper sprayed,’ he allegedly wrote.
Prosecutors said at the bail hearing that Fisher was a danger to the community, saying he had stashed his firearms in a vehicle he took to Washington.
Stedman’s dating coach business is registered as The Dynamic Man LLC, according to Mel Magazine, and his blog has posts titled ‘How to Host a Party,’ ‘The Four Types of Friends You’ll Make in Your Life’ and ‘Why Every Man Should Go Hunting.’
Stedman has been charged with unlawfully entering a restricted building
The 32-year-old from New Jersey broke into Nancy Pelosi’s office and sat at her desk
In September 2015 he wrote a post entitled: ‘3 Reasons Donald Trump Gets Hot Chicks’.
‘Trump has been incredibly successful throughout his life – both in real estate, show business, as well as in romance, having dated some of the most attractive and impressive girls in the world,’ Stedman wrote.
‘Trump = Controversy,’ he said, admiringly. ‘Edginess. But more than all of that: Defiance. Defiance of social norms. Defiance of expected behavior. Defiance of appropriate reactions.
‘Defiance of anything whatsoever that tries to suppress you.’
In recent months, Stedman fell down the rabbit hole of QAnon-style theories, posting a video about ‘COVID and the deep state’.
In one post he wrote: ‘You don’t have a problem with Trump, you have a problem with masculine energy.’
In the midst of the riots he retweeted a post saying ‘the Sleeping Giant is awake now’.
‘It’s not going to be a smooth ride as it clashes with the powers that be.’
On Friday he posted: ‘I appreciate all the kind words. I am doing well. Feeling positive, confident, and at peace. We will all get through this. Hold the light :)’
