TikTok, Facebook posts lead to charges against Missouri man in Capitol insurrection
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TikTok and Facebook posts helped lead to federal charges against an Independence man arrested Monday in connection with the Capitol riot, court records show.
Federal authorities arrested Devin Kiel Rossman in Kansas City after he was charged Thursday on four misdemeanor counts, according to court documents. Rossman is the 22nd Missouri resident to face federal charges for participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
According to the charging documents, the FBI received an anonymous tip on Jan. 7, 2021, that Rossman had posted a video of himself on Facebook standing on the balcony of the Capitol building. Images from his Facebook account also showed photos taken inside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Investigators then obtained records through a search warrant served on Google and found that a mobile device associated with Rossman’s gmail address was at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The Google location data showed that the device was inside the Capitol for an hour and 53 minutes.
On June 23, 2021, the documents say, an FBI agent saw a TikTok video that depicted someone inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. At the 20-second mark on the video, the documents say, “a white male with a beard wearing a tan jacket or shirt, blue jeans, and a baseball cap with sunglasses perched atop was seen descending stairs inside the Capitol Building.”
After comparing the video to Facebook photos, Rossman’s driver’s license photo and images on closed-circuit TV in the Capitol on Jan. 6, authorities determined the person on TikTok was Rossman.
In other Capitol surveillance videos, a man matching Rossman’s description can be seen with people in an interior hallway on the second floor of the Capitol, the documents say. A person matching Rossman’s description also was seen entering an office, then reappearing in the hallway.
The FBI executed a search warrant on Rossman’s Facebook account on Oct. 20, 2021, and after reviewing his private messages confirmed that he traveled to Washington, D.C., and went inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the documents.
“In more than one conversation, Rossman admitted that he entered U.S. House of Representative Speaker Nancy J. Pelosi’s office,” the documents say. “Rossman described what he viewed inside her office, including an open laptop and several television screens.”
One image in his Facebook account was a photo of Pelosi’s name plate above her office door.
Rossman was charged with entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
It wasn’t clear why Rossman wasn’t charged until last week. More than 800 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol riot.
To date, 11 of the 22 Missouri defendants have pleaded guilty to charges involving the insurrection. Ten of the 11 have been sentenced, and one — Proud Boys member Louis Colon of Blue Springs — awaits sentencing.
