January 6 political prisoner William “Billy” Chrestman’s wife and kids are on the brink of homelessness as the breadwinner in their family endures pretrial detention in the DC gulag for month 33.
Chrestman, a father of 5 and grandfather of 4, stays in good spirits while trapped behind the concrete walls, “Where men have been beaten within an inch of their lives,” for the foreseeable future for… protesting. But the stress of supporting his family from behind bars is reaching a breaking point.
To make ends meet, Chrestman’s wife resigned to selling the house he bought his family 18 years ago.
His children are now separated from their mother living in different homes with different relatives as Chrestman struggles to afford commissary and foot the neverending expense of using the jail-authorized tablet to stay in communication with his loved ones.
**Please donate to Billy Chrestman’s GiveSendGo campaign here.
Like more than 80 percent of January 6 defendants, Chrestman is a veteran.
The 49-year-old Kansas City area Proud Boy served as a U.S. Army combat medic for four years and comes from a family of veterans.
Prior to attending the J6 Fedsurrection, Chrestman had no prior criminal history.
The government contends he “conspired” to overthrow the US government on January 6 during premeditated insurrection” while wielding just the wooden handle of an axe.
(Because, when combat veterans plan an “insurrection” to “violently overthrow the US government,” they leave all their axes with blades, and firearms, at home!)
At one point during the rally, Chrestman used the axe handle to prevent a barrier from lowering and closing in the tunnels under the Capitol, demonstrating “a de facto leadership role” for the Proud Boys and serving as “the primary coordinator” of their efforts to disrupt police, prosecutors argued in a February 2021 court filing.
In the weeks leading up to his arrest, Chrestman saw the reports about demonstrators getting arrested for their role in the Capitol riot
But he never imagined the United States government would charge him with Conspiracy; Obstruction of an Official Proceeding and Aiding and Abetting; Obstruction of Law Enforcement During Civil Disorder and Aiding and Abetting; Threatening a Federal Officer; Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds and Carrying a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon; Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds and Carrying a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon for his protesting, nor did he suspect the FBI and the country he served would wage a terror attack against his family.
On Feb. 11, 2021, around 4:30 a.m., Chrestman and his wife awoke to an explosion –flash bangs ignited by federal agents as they barged into his house during the last moments he would spend in the home he will never return to.
Still haunted by the life-altering predawn raid, Chrestman recalled the morning federal agents wielded machine guns at him in a stick-up he compares to military forces taking down Sadam Hussein.
“I woke up to flashbang grenades, pounding at the door, all kinds of squad cars parked across the street, in my lawn — around the block,” the January 6 defendant told The Gateway Pundit in an exclusive interview.
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“I woke up with the phone ringing and flash bangs going off on my window and then I got up. I saw a spotlight — it was it was really confusing,” he said. “I answered the phone and it was the FBI. They were telling me to come outside.
“I asked them for a minute to get dressed, like, ‘Give me a second to get dressed.’ They were like, ‘Oh no, it’s okay. Just come on out, we have we’ve got stuff for you to wear. I’m like, ‘Yeah that doesn’t sound right.’
“So, [I stood there], for what felt like hours, but it was only a few seconds trying to figure out, ‘What to do? What to do?’ — because I was just that out of it, just really discombobulated.”
When Chrestman stepped outside to SWAT teams, a military vehicle used in Iraq on his front lawn, branches of the trees surrounding his house bulldozed and the laser of a machine gun pointed at his head.
“The laser was pointed right at me…The muzzle of that machine guy was about 10 yards to my chest. It was really ridiculous. It was overkill.”
Shackled, thrown in a van, and locked in a small room for hours by agent smiths, the confinement was just a glimpse of what J6ers would endure month after month while isolated in a 6 by 8-foot “hole” of the Washington DC Central Correctional Treatment Facility.
** You can donate to Billy Chrestman’s GiveSendGo campaign here.
As the DoJ constantly secures a 100 percent conviction rate against J6ers in jury trials with recycled jurors, and a 99 percent conviction rate among all J6 cases, it’s increasingly evident no justice will be served in the federal courthouse in the District of Columbia during a rigged trial.
Just weeks ago, Chrestman shared a cell block with fellow Proud Boys Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, Joseph Biggs, Enrique Tarrio and Dominic Pezzola. Tarrio was not even in DC on J6 while Nordean, Rehl and Biggs committed no violent crimes.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced the five defendants to 22, 18, 17, 15 and 10 years– the highest prison terms of any J6 defendant to date– for wrongthink. Aiming for 33 years to life, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a motion last week in a twisted attempt to get the defendants even longer prison sentences.
Kelly also sentenced Infowars host Owen Shroyer to 60 days in prison for showing no remorse about chanting, “USA! USA!” on January 6.
Waking up in an orange jumpsuit in the Twilight Zone Patriot pod, facing the prospect of losing his wife and going decades without seeing his children like the others, Chrestman opted for a plea deal in September.
On Oct. 16 he pleaded guilty to obstructing the joint session of Congress for certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election theft and threatening to assault a federal officer during the riot. Judge Kelly is scheduled to sentence Chrestman for the two felony convictions on Jan. 12.
Chrestman prison term will range from four years and three months to five years and three months, according to estimated sentencing guidelines. But sentencing guidelines are arbitrarily applied by activist judges presiding over J6 cases, like Kelly.
Nearly three years incarcerated, more than half of which has been sent in solitary confinement because of “Covid,” Chrestman’s only goal in life is to make it back home to his wife and children and provide them a roof over their heads in the interim.
“There’s no livelihood anymore. To be honest with you, the only thing I have left is my family and that’s because my wife and kids are amazing,” he said. “Even though they — everything has been taken from all of us — our house that our kids grew up in. God, I’ve had that house for over 18 years. It’s gone.
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“All my possessions that couldn’t fit into a small five by 10 storage locker tend to be sold. Basically, all we’ve got in there is stuff that’s important like childhood memories, photo albums, my bed, our bed — that’s the only furniture we kept –and my tools so that I can make a living when I get out.”
Chrestman worked as a Union sheet metal worker for 15 years until he was targeted and doxed by members of Antifa militants who herald themselves as Sedition Hunters following Jan. 6.
The militant fascist group waged a smear campaign against the veteran prompting his blacklist from the Union, as stated in his GiveSendGo campaign.
“Antifa made sure to dox me and destroy my livelihood before the arrest. I’ve been basically blackballed by the union. They won’t say it but nobody will hire me. I used to not have a hard time getting hired at all,” he continued. “On my LinkedIn page, they contacted all my employers and harassed them.
“They called me a ‘white supremacist’ and everything else. I mean, my kids are half Jewish and Mexican. And I’m probably the saddest excuse for a nazis that you’ve ever seen.”
**You can support Billy Chrestman’s GiveSendGo campaign here.**
The post DOJ Rips Family Apart: J6 Political Prisoner Billy Chrestman’s Kids Are Homeless Amid Torture In 33-Month Pretrial Detention appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.