Ohio Pastor From ‘Salt and Light Brigade’ Arrested by FBI for ‘Physical Violence,’ Other Jan. 6 Charges

Ohio Pastor Bill Dunfee (No. 14) was among the first protesters to breach the outer police line on the east side of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Attorney Brad Geyer/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

A leading member of the Ohio-based Salt and Light Brigade was arrested on Oct. 5 and charged with seven federal Jan. 6-related crimes, weeks after an Oath Keepers defense attorney identified the group as unindicted “suspicious actors” who incited entry into the U.S. Capitol through the Columbus Doors.

Pastor William Dunfee, 57, of Frazeysburg, Ohio, was arrested on a criminal complaint (pdf) filed in Washington. He was scheduled to make an initial appearance in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

Dunfee is charged with civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a restricted building or grounds, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.

Dunfee and other alleged members of the Salt and Light Brigade were identified in court papers over the summer by Oath Keepers defense attorney Brad Geyer (pdf) as having committed the very acts he said were wrongly ascribed to the Oath Keepers.

Pastor Bill Dunfee speaks to a crowd on the east side of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.  (U.S. Department of Justice)

According to a statement of facts filed with the criminal complaint, at about 1:35 p.m. on Jan. 6, Dunfee stood on a low wall outside police barricades and spoke through a bullhorn. “We want Donald Trump and if Donald Trump is not coming, we are taking our house,” he said, according to the complaint. “We are taking our house.”

Dunfee twice pushed against metal barricades being held up by police, the complaint said. He and the crowd breached the barricades on the second try. Dunfee is seen on video “advancing towards the U.S. Capitol Building with his hands raised,” the document said.

Dunfee moved with the crowd up the east steps to the Columbus Doors, where he was hit with pepper spray, the complaint said. After the doors were opened and the crowd started streaming into the Capitol, several men exited and spoke to Dunfee. “We did it, we shut ‘em all down,” one man said. “We did our job.”

“Hallelujah,” Dunfee replied, according to the complaint. A short time later he told the crowd, “Mission accomplished,” the complaint said.

The FBI agent who wrote the affidavit said he took that to mean the “mission” was “disrupting and delaying” the certification of Electoral College votes by a joint session of Congress.

Geyer said he looks forward to receiving information about Dunfee’s case in discovery for the Oath Keepers trial underway in Washington.

“I’m gratified that they finally can determine what happened and get appropriate discovery and turn it over to my defense,” Geyer told The Epoch Times. “This is all germane and crucial information to the Oath Keepers defense.”

‘Surrounded by Patriots’

Dunfee is the pastor of New Beginnings Ministries in Warsaw, Ohio. The complaint said that on May 30, 2021, the church’s Facebook page had a video of Dunfee talking about his experience at the Capitol.

“I can tell you, having been there [at the U.S. Capitol], that um, we were surrounded by patriots,” he said, according to the complaint. “Many, many, many, many patriots. And I thank god [sic] they showed up to um, just to let it be known, that you know, what the bottom line is this, that um, you are not stealing this election. You’re not going to rob us, deprive us of a democracy, of a republic, without us being heard.”

In September, Dunfee told The Epoch Times in an email that he would let a statement issued by Salt and Light Brigade founder Coach Dave Daubenmire speak for him as well.

“On Jan. 6th, we joined literally millions of Americans in Washington D.C. to do nothing more than exercise our 1st Amendment right to ‘peaceably assemble to petition our government for a redress of grievances,’” the statement reads. “It is our God-given right to do so. At no time did we engage in violence nor promote violence. We were a group of moms and pops who love our nation and merely traveled to Washington to exercise those Constitutionally protected rights.”

Pastor Bill Dunfee of the Salt and Light Brigade pushes against the police barricade until it falls, then runs for the east steps of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Archive.org/Screenshots via The Epoch Times)

Geyer, who represents Oath Keepers defendant Kenneth Harrelson in the seditious-conspiracy trial taking place in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., identified dozens of people he said were affiliated with the Salt and Light Brigade, founded by Daubenmire as part of his Pass the Salt Ministries.

Geyer said there was a “stunning conspiracy” to attack the Capitol, but it was not planned or carried out by the Oath Keepers.

Geyer said his experts at trial “will document the actual plan and conspiracy to deploy rally attendees as force multipliers that the Oath Keepers played no part in,” Geyer wrote in an unsuccessful motion seeking a trial delay. “There was a plan to attack the Capitol, but not by Harrelson.

“The government frames Harrelson as the conductor of the orchestra when he did not even play in a strings section or a brass section but was merely a member of the audience.”

Geyer said defense attorneys in the Oath Keepers case requested information on the “suspicious actors” from prosecutors and the Department of Justice, but received nothing.

“That the FBI could still be reviewing required discovery and Brady [exculpatory] information more than 18 months post-arrest and be sitting on evidence of a host of perpetrators who actually engaged in the crimes that Harrelson is accused of committing is shocking and frankly, incomprehensible…” Geyer wrote.

Dunfee is well-known for the years-long battle he and his New Beginnings Ministries had with a strip club in New Castle, Ohio. The group posted members outside the club in an effort to discourage patrons. In response, topless strippers picketed Dunfee’s church during Sunday services.