Pa. Proud Boys Leader Charged in Capitol Riot Did Stint as Merrill Call Center Rep

Another American arrested for his role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot has turned out to have a financial services background, this time a former broker who worked briefly in a Merrill Lynch call center and was identified in an indictment by the Justice Department as president of the Philadelphia branch of far-right, white nationalist group the Proud Boys.

Zachary Rehl, 35, of Philadelphia was charged with six counts in all for his role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol Building.

Those counts included conspiracy “(1) to stop, delay, or hinder Congress’s enforcement certification of the Electoral College vote, and (2) to obstruct and interfere with law officers engaged in their official duties to protect the Capitol and its occupants from those who had unlawfully advanced onto Capitol grounds,” according to the indictment that was filed March 10 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The other counts were: obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting; obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder and aiding and abetting; destruction of government property and aiding and abetting; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; and disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds.

Three other Americans identified as Proud Boys members were charged with the same counts in the indictment. All four were arrested by the FBI on March 17.

Merrill Lynch declined to comment Wednesday. Rehl did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rehl worked for a Merrill Lynch call center in New Jersey for three weeks in October 2019, according to his report on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s BrokerCheck website.  He is no longer registered as a broker, according to BrokerCheck.

Rehl’s LinkedIn profile, which only identifies him as Zachary R., says he has been working as an independent insurance agent for a company called Winchester Financial Services since September 2018.

Channing D. Phillips, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, filed a motion Saturday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, requesting that the court revoke a magistrate judge’s decision in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to release Rehl, pending trial.

A hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

Rehl wasn’t the only rioter with ties to financial services.

Ex-Cantor Fitzgerald broker and Olympic medal winner Klete Derik Keller was arrested in Colorado in January and charged with seven counts in all for his role in the storming of the U.S. Capitol Building.

Former broker and RIA Christopher Stanton Georgia, 53, of Alpharetta, Georgia, killed himself three days after he was arrested for his alleged role in the U.S. Capitol riot, according to authorities. He was one of several people arrested Jan. 6, near the Capitol, after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser issued a curfew in the wake of the riot, court documents showed.

Georgia was charged with entering and attempting to “enter certain property, that is, the United States Capitol Grounds, against the will of the United States Capitol Police,” according to the documents.

Police found Georgia dead in his home Jan. 9. Medical examiners in Fulton County, on Jan. 11, conducted an autopsy after which they ruled the death a suicide, according to the autopsy report.