- Associated Press - Thursday, February 18, 2021

ATLANTA (AP) - A Georgia man is accused of engaging in disorderly and disruptive acts to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote during the attack on the U.S. Capitol last month, according to a federal court filing.

Verden Andrew Nalley was arrested Wednesday on federal charges and has a hearing scheduled Friday on a request by prosecutors that he be held without bond, according to documents filed in federal court in Atlanta. A public defender appointed for Nalley did not immediately respond to an email Thursday seeking comment on the charges.

The three-count indictment filed against Nalley indicates that he was with William McCall Calhoun Jr., an attorney from Americus who was arrested last month on charges related to the the deadly insurrection on Jan. 6.

Court filings in Calhoun’s case include multiple social media postings Calhoun is alleged to have made from inside the Capitol. Nalley is mentioned in at least one of the posts.

“We occupied the Capitol and shut down the Government - we shut down their stolen election shenanigans,” Calhoun wrote, according to a sworn statement from an FBI agent. “I was there and saw it all. My buddy Andy Nalley and I were in the first two hundred to rush up the steps and inside after the Vanguard had clashed hard with the police and had made them retreat.”

Nalley is charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and violent entry or disorderly conduct.

The indictment against him says he and Calhoun “forcibly entered and remained in the Capitol to stop, delay and hinder Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote.” It says they “entered and remained in the Capitol complex where the Vice President and Vice President-elect were temporarily visiting, without lawful authority to do so” and that those actions “did in fact impede and disrupt” government business and official functions.

Nalley is the latest in a string of Georgians to be arrested among more than 200 people charged so far in the siege on the Capitol led by supporters of President Donald Trump, where five were killed including Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick.

On Wednesday, a judge ordered that a Georgia woman and her son who lives in Tennessee remain jailed pending trial on charges related to the riot.

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