Overview
- Utah prosecutors charged John Emanuel Banuelos with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault in a 2018 case after a DNA test in August linked him to the alleged attack.
- Cook County sheriff's investigators arrested Banuelos on Oct. 17 in Cicero, Illinois, on a Utah warrant issued Oct. 1, and he remains jailed in Cook County, officials said.
- Charging documents and police reports describe allegations of drugging, a prolonged sexual assault, strangulation, and death threats against a woman identified as S.J.
- FBI and surveillance footage indicate Banuelos pulled a handgun and fired two shots into the air on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, a distinction unique among charged rioters.
- Banuelos was charged federally in March 2024, but the case was dismissed after Trump's January 2025 mass clemency for Jan. 6 defendants, and reporting notes similar post-clemency arrests of other rioters.