Bucks Man Assaulted Officer In Capitol Breach, Leading To Concussion: Justice Department

LEVITTOWN, PA — A Bucks County man was indicted on Wednesday for multiple federal offenses in the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Justice announced.

Thirty-seven-year-old Ryan Samsel of Bristol Borough was indicted on federal offenses including assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, carrying out an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds; and obstruction of an official proceeding.

The FBI identified Samsel as one of the people in a video of insurrectionists at the Capitol pushing and pulling on barricades, leading to his arrest on Jan. 30 after a criminal complaint. When Samsel and others succeeded in knocking over one of the barricades, the FBI said, a police officer hit her head on the stairs behind her. The officer was later taken to the hospital and diagnosed with a concussion.

In the original criminal complaint against Samsel, an FBI agent says he picked up the officer and said, "We don't have to hurt you. Why are you standing in our way?"

After the initial confrontation, Samsel again confronted Capitol Police officers on the west terrace of the Capitol building, according to the FBI. While there, court documents say he tried to pull a riot shield away from an officer.

In total, Samsel was indicted by a grand jury on seven total counts related to the Jan. 6 breach.

A filing by federal prosecutors in June said a criminal background check on Samsel revealed a long history of violent incidents.

"The facts underlying these other convictions are extremely disturbing," the document reads. "They show a pattern of Samsel choking and beating women to the point of loss of consciousness, of many hospital visits for many victims, of chipped and missing teeth, and of Samsel even breaking into one victim's home multiple times to assault her."

A police report filed in 2007 said Samsel allegedly got into another man's car and started hitting him in the face; in 2009, he was convicted of simple assault and reckless endangerment after he held a victim against her will for five hours, choking her to the point of unconsciousness, pushing her, beating her, and chipping her teeth; and in 2011 he was convicted of several counts in a case where a victim said that he smashed a hot pizza in her face, beat her, poured a beer over her head, threw her into a canal, and held her head under the water.

Someone else came forward in 2019, recounting several incidents of Samsel choking her to the point of unconsciousness and breaking into her house and assaulting her. She said Samsel raped her several times.

Officials also confirmed that Samsel was beaten while in federal custody. His attorney, Elizabeth Pasqualini, said the attack left him with injuries that were not properly treated while in custody.

An arraignment date for Samsel on these federal charges has not yet been set, the Department of Justice said.

In the seven months since Jan. 6, more than 570 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Justice said Thursday. Bucks County is among the counties with the highest rates of arrests following the insurrection, with five residents charged to date.

Samsel's case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Department of Justice National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section, with assistance by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

The FBI’s Washington Field Office is investigating, and identified Samsel as #51 in its seeking information photos, with significant assistance provided by the U.S. Capitol Police and the Bucks Montco Safe Streets Task Force of the Fort Washington resident agency of the Philadelphia Field Office.

Related:

Bristol Man Charged In Capitol Riots Has Violent Past, Feds Say

Bucks Co. Among Those With Most Capitol Arrests In The Country

Bucks County Gym Owner Charged In Capitol Riots

Fifth Bucks County Resident Charged In Capitol Riot

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