A 43-year-old Nottingham man charged with storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 is facing additional charges after investigators found illegal firearms and drugs as part of their search for evidence of his role in the insurrection.
Elias Nick Costianes Jr. was charged in March for entering the Capitol, after a tipster referred the FBI to Costianes’ Snapchat account. Those videos showed him climbing scaffolding outside the building and entering the balcony of the Senate chamber.
Authorities unsealed a new criminal complaint on Wednesday, detailing how they found two unregistered guns during a February search of the home where Costianes was staying, as well as evidence that he was involved in dealing marijuana and heavily used cocaine and testosterone.
During a search of his iCloud account they found hundreds of conversations about buying and selling drugs, they wrote.
Costianes’ attorney, Joseph Conte, declined to comment on the new charges.
Costianes allegedly told authorities that he took testosterone for a medical condition, and obtained it illegally because he did not “believe in prescriptions.” But the FBI says he was not only buying but selling testosterone, as well as cocaine. He joked with another person that the FBI seized his marijuana, and directed another person to delete conversations about Jan. 6, authorities said in court papers.