PHILADELPHIA — The FBI arrested the president of the Philadelphia Proud Boys on Wednesday morning at his Port Richmond home, weeks after photos and videos emerged placing him at the front of the organization’s presence during the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot.
Agents arrived at the home just after 8 a.m. and took Zach Rehl, 35, away in handcuffs shortly afterward, neighbors said. Specific charges against him have not yet been unsealed and it was not immediately clear whether his arrest Wednesday morning was tied to his presence at the Capitol.
A spokesperson for the FBI in Philadelphia declined to comment, beyond confirming that agents were at his address Wednesday morning conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity.
Rehl’s arrest comes two weeks after The Inquirer reported on photos and videos that had circulated widely on social media showing him at the forefront of a crowd of Proud Boys and followers, many of whom had already been charged with playing a role in the insurrection.
The footage showed Rehl, wearing a camouflage “Make America Great Again” hat and a Temple Owls backpack, with two other leaders of the organization — Ethan Nordean, of Seattle, whom prosecutors have described as the de facto leader of the Proud Boys’ force that day, and Joseph Biggs, one of the group’s organizers from Florida — leading a crowd of roughly 100 through the streets of Washington to a police barricade.
Nordean directed the marchers via bullhorn, leading chants of “Whose Streets? Our Streets” and “F--- Antifa!,” while Rehl and Biggs used raised fists to signal to the Proud Boys behind them to stop or start their progress.
A photo later published in January in The New Yorker magazine caught Rehl on camera smoking a cigarette and checking his cellphone in a mob of rioters in the office of U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.
Prosecutors have charged at least two other men with trashing Merkley’s office, including Brandon Fellows, 26, of Schenectady, New York, who was arrested within two weeks of the attack. He told CNN on his way out of the Capitol Jan. 6 that he and others were smoking weed in “some Oregon” room.
Merkley later posted a video to Twitter showing the damage the rioters had caused.
Investigators have described the Proud Boys, a militant nationwide organization whose members are among Donald Trump’s most vocal and violent supporters, as one of the primary instigating forces behind the Capitol attack. More than a dozen members have been charged in connection with the insurrection so far.
Rehl, a former Marine and son and grandson of Philadelphia police officers, has emerged in recent years as one of the group’s most visible representatives on the East Coast.
He was one of the organizers behind the 2018 pro-Trump “We the People” rally outside Independence Hall whose attendees were eclipsed by the crowd of counterdemonstrators who showed up in response.
And when Proud Boys were spotted mingling with officers at the Philadelphia police union hall this summer after a visit from Vice President Mike Pence, Rehl was there, drinking beer and chatting with others in the parking lot who were openly carrying a Proud Boys flag.
He does not appear to have posted any photos or videos of himself to social media during the Capitol riot, unlike many of those charged so far.
But the night before the insurrection, he posted to his account on Parler, a social media site favored among right-wing users, that he was in D.C. And the evening of the attack, he defended what had happened as a “historical day.”
