January 6 rioter busted by high school classmate’s selfie tip

A former high school classmate helped the FBI identify a Minnesota man who was among the crowd that stormed the US Capitol on January 6.

The tipster contacted the FBI a day after the 2021 riot to report that his former high school peer, 43-year-old Martin James Cudo of Lakeville, had participated in the riot, according to court documents viewed by The Independent.

Mr Cudo was subsequently arrested and charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building without lawful entry, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building and in a Capitol building and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.

The day after the Capitol riots, the FBI received the tip from the former classmate with a selfie Mr Cudo took inside the Capitol building that he posted on social media, the complaint said.

The FBI later received more information from another person who said he was Mr Cudo’s employer, who also identified him in photographs from the day of the riots.

Mr Cudo was interviewed by the FBI a week after the riots, the document said, after he was identified in the tip-offs and he confessed that he was at the riots and only “realised the trouble he may be in” when he returned to his hotel after the insurrection.