MONROE TOWNSHIP, N.J. (1010 WINS/AP) – A suspect in the Jan. 6. 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol surrendered to authorities Friday, two days after he fled into a wooded area of New Jersey and sparked a two-day manhunt by federal and local law enforcement.
Gregory Yetman turned himself in at a police station in Monroe Township on Friday morning, according to the FBI’s Newark office, which had just announced a $10,000 reward Thursday amid an intensive search for the 47-year-old in Middlesex County.
The details of his surrender were not immediately available, including whether an attorney accompanied him or whether he has retained one. A telephone message left by the Associated Press on an answering machine at Yetman’s home seeking comment was not immediately returned.
He's expected to appear in court in Newark on Monday, ABC News reported.
The search for Yetman began at 8 a.m. Wednesday when FBI agents came to arrest him at his home in Helmetta, and he "fled and went off into the woods," Helmetta Mayor Christopher Slavicek, told the New York Times.
The mayor said there was “certainly a sense of heightened anxiety” in and around Helmetta as the search progressed. There were “search helicopters flying at tree height and various law enforcement agencies going up and down the roads,” he said.
“We will be in the area staging until Yetman is arrested,” the FBI’s Newark office said in a statement Thursday. The FBI has set up a command operation at the local community center.
A federal arrest warrant was issued Monday for Yetman, who faces a long list of charges in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, including assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers; obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds; and committing an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings, according to the FBI.
USA Today reported earlier this year that Yetman, whom it identified as a former military police sergeant in the New Jersey National Guard, had been interviewed by the FBI about his participation in the riot, and that he is suspected of firing pepper spray at protesters and police officers.
Yetman told the newspaper he did nothing wrong at the Capitol, and he denies pepper-spraying anyone.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.