A onetime Illinois Army National Guard sergeant was arrested Wednesday on charges he and his brother broke into the U.S. Capitol through a Senate fire door on Jan. 6 and assaulted police officers trying to keep the mob from overrunning the building.
Joseph Bierbrodt, 54, of Sheridan, was charged in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. with eight counts, including disorderly conduct in a restricted building, assault of a federal officer, and obstruction of law enforcement, court records show.
Bierbrodt appeared at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Wednesday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Young B. Kim, who ordered him released on a $10,000 recognizance bond, the records show.
His court-appointed attorney could not immediately be reached for comment. Bierbrodt left the Illinois Army National Guard in 2018, according to a spokesman.
Also charged in the same complaint was Bierbrodt’s brother, William “Marty” Bierbrodt, 55, of St. Cloud, Florida, records show. Court information for him was not immediately available.
Joseph Beirbrodt is at least the 39th Illinoisan to be charged so far in the Capitol breach, an ongoing investigation that has been described by prosecutors as the largest criminal investigation in the country’s history.
According to the complaint, surveillance images captured Beirbrodt and his brother, who had a distinctive long beard and was using a cane and scooter to move around due to a foot injury, as they approached a fire door on the Senate wing of the Capitol.
William Bierbrodt used his cane to smash through the window and then reached through the broken glass to unlatch the door, the complaint stated.
Joseph Bierbrodt, dressed in a red hat, American flag face covering and dark sunglasses, was seen rushing through the door despite the presence of police in full riot gear on the other side trying to keep it from opening, the complaint alleged.
Once inside, Joseph Bierbrodt assaulted one of the officers and slammed him into a wall, according to the complaint. As they moved deeper into the hallway, the brothers were met by another line of riot police and pepper sprayed, causing them to retreat, according to the complaint.
Joseph Bierbrodt was photographed removing his face covering and trying to wash the spray from his eyes, according to the complaint. He then retreated back down the steps to where his brother had left his scooter and was again seen on surveillance images trying to wash his face, which was stained with blood from an apparent injury suffered in the melee.
The FBI first got a match for Joseph Beirbrodt using facial recognition technology last year, according to the complaint. His identity was then further corroborated by one of Beirbrodt’s fellow guardsman, who identified him for law enforcement from images captured at the Capitol, the complaint stated.
Bierbrodt was featured in a February 2018 story in the Tribune about escorting a kindergartener to her first father-daughter dance after her dad had died in a military training accident months earlier.
Bierbrodt, who has four children, was quoted in the article saying he was “touched” by the request to help the little girl. “I consider it a huge honor to be able to do this,” Bierbrodt said. “We never forget the ones who have left, or leave their families unattended.”
That May, he was given the Major General John A. Logan Patriot Award at Chicago’s Memorial Day ceremony. A Facebook post still public on the Illinois National Guard’s profile shows him standing with then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel as the award was announced.
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His brother, William, was also identified last year. Social media posts later uncovered by law enforcement showed William had “advocated violence against members of a different political ideology” just weeks before the Capitol assault, including one post on Parler stating “all the Obama cronies should be taken tied to a stack and shot in the head.”
“Time for revolution French style,” the post stated, according to the complaint.
More than 1,000 people have been charged as part of the investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack, including arrests in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
Of the 39 Illinoisans charged so far, Bierbrodt is one of only a handful to be accused of engaging in violence.
Among them was James Robert Elliott, of Aurora, a former member of the Proud Boys militia group who assaulted police outside the Capitol with a flagpole. He was sentenced in June to more than three years in prison.
Earlier this month, Kevin Lyons, 40, an HVAC technician from Chicago’s Gladstone Park neighborhood, was given more than four years behind bars for entering U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s private office during the riot and stealing a staffer’s wallet as well as a cherished photo of the speaker with the late civil rights icon John Lewis.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
