Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Monday that federal agents had arrested two more people in connection with the storming of a St. Paul church last month. Bondi promised quick punishment for what she called a planned attack on religious worship.
Bondi said that the people who were arrested were Ian Davis Austin and Jerome Deangelo Richardson. She said the arrests were made because of a problem at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, on January 18. The church’s pastor is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Nine people have now been charged in connection with the incident, thanks to the latest arrests.
The group is accused of plotting to break constitutional rights and breaking the FACE Act, a federal law from 1994 that makes it illegal to use force, intimidation, or obstruction to “injure, intimidate, or interfere” with someone’s right to worship freely. Bondi said that the two new suspects who were arrested will likely face the same charges as the others.
“If you riot in a place of worship, we WILL find you,” Bondi wrote on X.
Video from the January event shows protesters against ICE chanting “ICE out” and stopping a church service, which made it hard for people to worship. The Justice Department says that what they did went from being a protest to being a crime.
Depending on how serious the crime is and whether there are any aggravating factors, breaking the FACE Act can result in fines or jail time.
Last week, the Justice Department arrested former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort for their alleged roles in the same protest. These new arrests come after that. According to federal charging documents, both could have broken the FACE Act.
A federal magistrate judge in Minnesota had already turned down the government’s first attempt to charge Don Lemon, calling it “frivolous.” Prosecutors later came back with new papers.
Lemon and Fort have both said that they were only there to report on the protest and not to take part in it.
Lemon and three other defendants arrested in connection with a protest inside a St. Paul church were released Friday following initial court appearances. Lemon said he plans to fight the charges after a federal grand jury indicted him and several journalists and activists in U.S. District Court in Minnesota.
The defendants are accused of conspiring to deprive church congregants of their rights and interfering with religious freedom inside a house of worship, reviving a case that was rejected last week by a magistrate judge.
The indictment names nine defendants, including seven protesters, Lemon, and another journalist. Seven of those charged have appeared in court so far, and four were released Friday.
Defense attorneys pushed back on First Amendment grounds, arguing the case centers on political protest and newsgathering. Lemon and the other journalist charged, Georgia Fort, have said they entered the church to cover a demonstration opposing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
One of the church’s pastors, David Easterwood, also serves as an ICE official.
Late Friday afternoon, Lemon appeared in court at a federal building in downtown Los Angeles wearing a white suit. Federal prosecutors requested a $100,000 bond and sought to restrict Lemon’s travel to Minneapolis and New York, where he lives. A magistrate judge denied both requests.
Lemon was not asked to enter a plea. His arraignment was scheduled for Feb. 9 in federal court in Minneapolis.
The 14-page indictment outlines preparations for the protest, referred to by organizers as Operation Pullup. It quotes organizer Nekima Levy Armstrong as saying demonstrators planned to “disrupt business as usual” and wanted to keep plans confidential.
As Jonathan Parnell began his sermon, the indictment says Levy Armstrong interrupted with loud declarations that “the time for judgment had come.” Other demonstrators yelled and blew whistles in what prosecutors described as a “takeover attack on the church.”
The indictment alleges members of the congregation perceived gestures by protesters as hostile and interpreted them as potential threats of violence. It also claims Lemon and Fort surrounded Parnell and questioned him aggressively in what prosecutors characterized as an attempt to intimidate him.
