Jan. 6 Defendant Who Faced Extradition From Poland Returns to US

After four years and seven months, Chris O’Neill, who was present during the protest at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has returned to the United States.

At a “Welcome Home” event hosted by the Conservative Caucus of Delaware on Dec. 4, he said the gathering of citizens on January 6 showed that “democracy is still alive in America.”

In the wake of the events of Jan. 6, the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged O’Neill with eight offenses, which could have meant 29 1/2 years in prison and $815,000 in fines, according to a letter he sent President Donald Trump. The most serious of these charges was an “attack on a police officer with a dangerous weapon.”

“Of the eight charges, only the charge of ‘Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing’ is true,” O’Neill said in his letter.

O’Neill holds dual U.S. and Polish citizenship. On June 13, 2023, the Polish court declined the DOJ’s request to extradite him to the United States. He was pardoned on Jan. 20 after Trump’s inauguration. Trump issued an executive order to pardon most of those convicted in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill breach.

At the “Welcome Home” event, he recounted his experience both at the Capitol Hill and in Poland, where he first traveled in the 1980s as a 20-year-old to witness the Solidarity Union movement push back against the ruling communist party, a movement that eventually led to the collapse of communism in Poland.

In 2022, then-Polish President Andrzej Duda awarded O’Neill two of Poland’s highest honors: The Order of Polonia Restituta (Knight’s Cross) and the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity, for his involvement in the anti-communist movement.

O’Neill said he was in the United States from October 2019 to April 2021 to take care of his mother, who had dementia.

On Jan. 6, 2021, O’Neill drove to Virginia, then took the metro to Washington and got off on or near Pennsylvania Ave. Because he was late for Trump’s speech, he went straight to the Capitol.

He said he didn’t go to Washington with the intention of “storming the Capitol.” He said he had a hope that perhaps Congress would take up the proposal made by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to delay certification of the 2020 election by 10 days to examine allegations of election fraud. He wanted to go to Trump’s speech at the Ellipse and then the Capitol—two parts of the same event. He said he believes the 2020 elections contained fraud.

O’Neill said he stood at the front of the rally witnessing events unfold. The crowd seemed to be undulating, but it was standing in place, well behind the flimsy bike rack barriers. Later, the police formed behind the bicycle rack barriers and others, higher up, began firing munitions into the crowd, which up to this point had stood in place—with the exception of a few who had gone up to the barriers. The crowd became riled up and moved forward, eventually making its way into the Capitol.

O’Neill explained how he refuted the charge of an “attack on a police officer with a dangerous weapon.” He obtained footage from the body camera of D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges.

“Reinforcements were coming from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department,” O’Neill recalled. “Some passed through the crowd; some were stopped. From this stopped force, Hodges apparently decided to make his way through the crowd solo, using his baton to forge his way. The crowd was dense, there was a man standing before me who suddenly moved away, and I was face-to-face with Hodges.”

“Not wanting to get hit with his baton, I instinctively grabbed it and held it for three seconds before I could find a way out. That was it—and I was charged with a potential sentence of 20 years. I am living proof of the weaponization of the FBI and DOJ during the Biden regime.”

“The most beautiful thing I heard inside the Capitol was the chant, ‘Whose house is this? It is the people’s house,’” O’Neill told the audience. “The defense of our Republic, the defense of our democratic experiment, sometimes requires action and sometimes sacrifice.”

O’Neill said he knew the meaning of sacrifice because of his close ties with Poland and witnessing the efforts against communism there.

“Because people remember the example of others’ sacrifice and that often motivates them to step up in time of need.”

O’Neill said he launched In Defense of Democracy Association to honor those who protested in front of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by awarding them honorary medals, hoping to counteract what he described on the association’s website as “the false narrative that the January 6th protest was an attack on democracy.”

“They weren’t Antifa, just the opposite,” he said. “They were people [who] had jobs to go back to, they had families. They didn’t have to risk, but they were there because they felt they should be.”

O’Neill thanked the Conservative Caucus of Delaware for issuing him the “Lifetime Conservatism Award” in 2023, although he was in Poland at the time, and for their continuous support.

On Dec. 3, the Polish Constitutional Court ruled the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) illegal and ordered its removal from the political party register.

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated when Chris O’Neill returned to the United States to care for his mother. The Epoch Times regrets the error.