CZM Rewind: Burning Hate: Tyler Dykes

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Speaker 5 Are you doing the same for your brain?

Speaker 8 Acting early to protect brain health may help reduce the risk of dementia from conditions like Alzheimer's disease.

Speaker 5 Studies have found that up to 45% of dementia cases may be prevented or delayed by managing risk factors you can change.

Speaker 10 Make brain health a priority.

Speaker 11 Ask your doctor about your risk factors and for a cognitive assessment. Learn more at brainhealthmatters.com.

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Speaker 2 Hello, Molly here.

Speaker 2 If you're a long time Weird Little Guys listener, you might recognize this episode as one you've heard before.

Speaker 2 But don't panic, it's not a rerun week. There is a regular episode today, too.
too.

Speaker 2 This one is back at the top of your feed today for your convenience, because if you haven't heard this one, you might want to give it a listen alongside today's regular episode.

Speaker 2 I write a lot of multi-part stories, but usually part two comes out the week after part one.

Speaker 2 That's really the only way to do it.

Speaker 2 And there are episodes I would love to write right now that I'm putting off because I know the ending will change if I just wait a little longer.

Speaker 2 But when I wrote this episode in October of 2024,

Speaker 2 the subject of the story was just a few days into a nearly five-year term in federal prison.

Speaker 2 I figured even if he did have a second act, it wouldn't be for another few years, at least.

Speaker 2 This part of the story was definitely over.

Speaker 2 But that five-year prison sentence ended three months later.

Speaker 2 On January 20th, 2025, within hours of being sworn into office for his second term, Donald Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who'd been charged with federal crimes related to their participation in the January 6th insurrection.

Speaker 2 With the stroke of a pen, he erased the legal consequences of those actions.

Speaker 2 Whether that consequence had been a slap on the wrist for a misdemeanor trespassing conviction or two decades in prison for seditious conspiracy.

Speaker 2 Whatever they'd done, they were free to go.

Speaker 2 Technically, most of them already were free.

Speaker 2 Four years into the investigation and prosecution of the events of January 6th, There were hundreds of defendants who'd already resolved their cases and completed whatever sentence they'd been given, if they got any sentence at all.

Speaker 2 Hundreds of those convicted weren't sentenced to any period of incarceration.

Speaker 2 Most of the January 6th defendants still in custody by 2025 were outliers.

Speaker 2 They'd been leaders or planners, or they'd committed crimes of violence.

Speaker 2 They'd used weapons. They were convicted of multiple felonies.

Speaker 2 And they were going to be in there for a while.

Speaker 2 Within 12 hours of the president's pardon, the Bureau of Prisons released 211 January 6 defendants who were still in custody.

Speaker 2 Tyler Bradley Dykes was one of those 211.

Speaker 2 This episode from October of 2024 is about how he ended up in prison.

Speaker 2 Now,

Speaker 2 in 2025,

Speaker 2 he's running for Congress.

Speaker 2 Last week, a jury in Alpamarole County, Virginia found Augustus Sol Invictus guilty on the felony charge of burning an object with the intent to intimidate for his participation in the Nazi torch march at the University of Virginia on August 11th, 2017.

Speaker 2 This was not only the first trial conviction for this charge, it was the first ever jury verdict reached on a charge under Section 18.2-423.01 of the Virginia Code.

Speaker 2 That law passed in 2002 in response to the legal challenge to Virginia's cross-burning statute by Pennsylvania Klansman Barry Black.

Speaker 2 I spent the last two episodes talking about the history of crossburning in Virginia and the life and legal battles of the man who brought about this change to the law.

Speaker 2 And I told you that until last year, that law had been sitting on the books all but untouched for two decades.

Speaker 2 I left you last week with a terrifying image. A small group of students surrounded by a sea of flames one summer night seven years ago.

Speaker 2 I told you a few weeks ago that this is a story I've been writing and rewriting for years.

Speaker 2 I could fill six months worth of episodes with just the stories of the men who carried those torches.

Speaker 2 The years I've spent watching the same few minutes of history, frame by frame from different angles, placing individual men within that seething mass of violent intent taught me a lot about the kinds of weird little guys that make up a crowd like this.

Speaker 2 They're cops and criminals, soldiers and soldiers of fortune, students and fathers, domestic abusers, realtors and lawyers and small business owners, social media personalities and wanted fugitives.

Speaker 2 They're your neighbors, your weird cousin, that guy at work you don't want to talk about politics with.

Speaker 2 They're all just

Speaker 2 some guy.

Speaker 2 There were hundreds of them there that night in August of 2017, but

Speaker 2 we'll just start with one today.

Speaker 2 I'm Molly Conger, and this is Weird Little Guys.

Speaker 2 You might think this episode is going to be about Augustus Invictus.

Speaker 2 It isn't.

Speaker 2 There will, one day, probably, be a multi-episode arc about the man who calls himself the attorney for the damned.

Speaker 2 A man whose name literally appears in the Merriam-Webster dictionary in the example sentence for the term white nationalist.

Speaker 2 A man who has been both a proud boy and a presidential candidate. Both a goat-slaughtering, blood-drinking wizard and a traditionalist Catholic.

Speaker 2 A father of seven with two ex-wives and a string of police reports filed by by wives, girlfriends, and mistresses.

Speaker 2 An attorney whose client list includes white supremacist paramilitaries, Nazi street gangs, and anti-Semitic trolls.

Speaker 2 A man who once renounced all of his worldly possessions and wandered off into the desert, proclaiming himself to be a god and a prophet, before quietly returning to Orlando to work at his father's law office.

Speaker 2 But that day isn't today.

Speaker 2 His conviction last week won't be the end of his story, I'm sure of that. So I'll bide my time.

Speaker 2 Because while Augustus Invictus was the first person ever found guilty by a jury of the crime of burning an object with the intent to intimidate, he wasn't the first to be convicted.

Speaker 2 Before his trial last week, there had already been five guilty pleas by other members of that march.

Speaker 2 You see, There is no statute of limitations on a felony in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Speaker 2 Whether or not that's wise or really in the overall best interests of justice more generally is a discussion for another day and maybe for another person.

Speaker 2 But it is the current state of affairs. And Virginia is a southern state, the one-time capital of the Confederacy.

Speaker 2 Few states without a bloody history of Klan violence even have a law on the books that makes it a crime to use a burning object as a tool of intimidation.

Speaker 2 But we did have such a history and we do have the resulting law.

Speaker 2 So even though that march in 2017 feels like it was almost a lifetime ago, it's not too late under Virginia law to hold those men accountable.

Speaker 2 To date, 12 men who marched that night have been charged under a Virginia law that makes it a felony to burn an object with the intent to intimidate.

Speaker 2 Five have pleaded guilty to it.

Speaker 2 Three have entered into plea agreements to the lesser charge of disorderly conduct.

Speaker 2 One went to trial and got a hung jury. And two cases remain pending.

Speaker 2 The first sentence handed down in one of these cases was for Tyler Bradley Dykes.

Speaker 2 His story touches on quite a few of the recurring themes of this show. He was a U.S.
Marine who was discharged for his involvement in extremist groups.

Speaker 2 He attended this Nazi rally where he's on video throwing punches and Hitler salutes. And when he wasn't held accountable for his actions, he went on to engage in even more serious conduct.

Speaker 2 And now he's in federal prison.

Speaker 2 The entire arc of his story can be summed up in a single pair of images, I think, like a pair of Nazi bookends.

Speaker 2 First, there's Tyler Dykes on August 11th, 2017, standing at the base of the statue of Thomas Jefferson, holding a torch in his left hand, with his right arm extended in a Nazi salute.

Speaker 2 And then there's Tyler Dykes again on January 6th, 2021, on the steps of the Capitol building, turning to face the mob below after fighting his way up to the doors.

Speaker 2 giving the same salute.

Speaker 2 A few months ago, Tyler Dykes was handed a 57-month federal sentence for assaulting police officers during the January 6th riot at the Capitol in 2021.

Speaker 2 If you're trying to do some math in your head right now, I'll tell you, 57 months is just shy of five years.

Speaker 2 But a federal prison sentence is kind of like a baby in that you always measure it in months, not years.

Speaker 2 And only the people who have to deal with the time in question feel like that makes any sense at all.

Speaker 2 In the sentencing memorandum written by his defense attorney, he's described as an impressionable young man. He was just 21 years old when he traveled to Washington, D.C.

Speaker 2 with his friends from church, they said.

Speaker 2 He'd been influenced by the non-stop media coverage and President Trump's social media posts into believing that the election had been stolen.

Speaker 2 He made incredibly poor decisions, his attorney conceded, but But he never planned to engage in any violence. He was just young and impetuous, and he got caught up in the crowd.

Speaker 2 He was a United States Marine.

Speaker 2 He was a Boy Scout. Quite literally, the defense sentencing memo cites his accomplishments as an Eagle Scout.

Speaker 2 He was just a nice young man who goes to church every Sunday and runs a small IT services company and takes care of his elderly parents.

Speaker 2 How could he possibly be the kind of person who deserves to go to federal prison for making a little mistake?

Speaker 2 But that wasn't quite the whole picture.

Speaker 2 Not that those things aren't mostly true. They are.

Speaker 2 But it's a spit-shined image of a much darker situation.

Speaker 2 Tyler Dykes was, indeed, a member of the United States Marine Corps on January 6th, 2021.

Speaker 2 He was a U.S. Marine when he wrenched the riot shield from the hands of a U.S.
Capitol Police officer and then used that shield to force his way through the police line and into the Capitol building.

Speaker 2 And he remained a United States Marine until he was given an other than honorable discharge in 2022.

Speaker 2 The revelations that unraveled his life came out of order.

Speaker 2 He wasn't identified as a Unite the Right attendee until 2022, after he'd already participated in the January 6th riot in 2021.

Speaker 2 He wasn't identified as the man putting swastika stickers around town in 2020 until he was discharged from the Marines for it in 2022.

Speaker 2 And he wasn't identified as a participant in the January 6th riot until July of 2023, after he'd been convicted for his conduct at Unite the Right.

Speaker 2 The consequences of his actions always seemed to come a little too late, after he'd already been emboldened by an apparent lack thereof.

Speaker 2 At his federal sentencing hearing a few months ago, he told the judge that he was high on adrenaline during the Capitol riot and said,

Speaker 2 I falsely believed that I would be free of consequences.

Speaker 2 But maybe we should start at the beginning rather than the end.

Speaker 2 In August of 2017, Tyler Dykes was 19 years old.

Speaker 2 He'd taken a year off after high school and was living at home with his parents in North Carolina that summer after spending his gap year abroad in Romania.

Speaker 2 He'd been accepted to Cornell University and would be moving into his dorm at the end of the month.

Speaker 2 Just a week before new student orientation at Cornell, he took one last trip before starting college.

Speaker 2 He came here to Charlottesville.

Speaker 2 On the evening of August 11th, 2017, Tyler Dykes stood among the hundreds of men who gathered at Nameless Field.

Speaker 2 It's a confusing name, Nameless Field.

Speaker 2 It isn't Nameless. It has a name.
The name is Nameless Field.

Speaker 2 I wonder what kind of who's on first type conversations happened over text message that night as the crowd assembled. But there he was, in the field, down by the tennis courts, behind the library.

Speaker 2 And he was handed a torch.

Speaker 2 And he found a place in line.

Speaker 2 And he marched.

Speaker 2 He chanted with the crowd as this river of flames wound its way through the university grounds.

Speaker 2 Blood and soil.

Speaker 2 Blood and soil.

Speaker 2 You will not replace us.

Speaker 2 Jews will not replace us.

Speaker 2 Fuck off, commies. This is our town now.
They shouted on the empty streets as they passed empty buildings.

Speaker 2 Blood and soil.

Speaker 2 Blood and soil.

Speaker 2 Blood and soil, they chanted until they could taste the blood in their own mouths from shouting themselves hoarse.

Speaker 2 Blood and soil until they saw blood red when the small group of students at the base of the Thomas Jefferson statue came into view.

Speaker 2 The streets had been empty until the march filled them.

Speaker 2 The libraries were empty. The dorms were empty.

Speaker 2 The academic and administrative buildings were empty.

Speaker 2 But as the march reached the top of the rotunda steps, looking down into the brick plaza below,

Speaker 2 they knew they weren't alone anymore.

Speaker 2 They knew what they were doing as they came down those steps.

Speaker 2 Each man, torch in hand, had a moment at the top of those stairs.

Speaker 2 Each marcher could see from that vantage point the tiny group in the plaza below.

Speaker 2 Students.

Speaker 2 Many of them still just teenagers,

Speaker 2 holding a homemade banner that read, UVA students against white supremacy.

Speaker 2 And in that moment, on those steps, each of them made the choice to follow the man in front of him as the march wound its way around the statue, around the students,

Speaker 2 circling around, arcing wide, and then tightening up. encircling them and closing them in.

Speaker 2 As the ring of fire closed around the statue, around those students, the violence began almost immediately.

Speaker 2 Verbal altercations gave way to fists. Shouted epithets were chased through the air by streams of pepper spray.

Speaker 2 A lit torch was swung, making contact with a counter-protester trying to shield those terrified young people.

Speaker 2 I've watched this video a hundred times. A thousand, maybe.

Speaker 2 And I still flinch as the flame arcs towards someone that I count among my closest friends.

Speaker 2 I tell you that not to pull at your heartstrings. You don't need to know that that video still makes my chest feel tight.

Speaker 2 I'm telling you because I want you to know I'm not objective about this.

Speaker 2 I don't pretend to be. I don't want to be.

Speaker 2 I don't believe in this myth of journalistic objectivity.

Speaker 2 Everybody has a thumb on the scale somewhere. Most people just lie about it.
To you or even to themselves.

Speaker 2 Of course, I have a bias here.

Speaker 14 I live here.

Speaker 2 I've sat in courtrooms and in coffee shops and on long car rides and on living room couches with people who were hurt that night.

Speaker 2 But But even if I had no connection to these people or to this place,

Speaker 2 it's no secret that as a researcher of white supremacist violence in America, my starting position is always against fascism, against Nazism, against violence done in the name of white supremacy.

Speaker 2 And I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of.

Speaker 2 As sociologist and expert on political violence Dr. Peter Seami once said on the stand,

Speaker 2 no no one is ever surprised to find out that a cancer researcher is interested in preventing cancer.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 yes, I have a stake in this.

Speaker 2 But you do too.

Speaker 2 Maybe you don't know it yet.

Speaker 2 You don't know these people.

Speaker 2 But I choose to betray my own lack of objectivity here. to get you to think about yours

Speaker 2 because I don't think you should be objective about this

Speaker 2 there is no special prize to be won by being the most diligently neutral observer of fascist violence

Speaker 2 you and i listener we are not jurors

Speaker 2 we are not ruling on the law

Speaker 2 we are people who have to live in this world

Speaker 2 You should feel something you can't shove down when you see a man who proudly calls himself a Nazi swing a flaming torch at someone who is trapped, someone whose only crime is not wanting hate to go unchallenged in a public square.

Speaker 2 And that's where Tyler Dykes was that night. Right at the center of this melee.

Speaker 2 As the air filled with screams and the burning scent of pepper spray,

Speaker 2 Tyler Dykes was fistfighting anyone he could reach.

Speaker 2 Videos show Dykes was the last one still fighting. He threw the last punch of the night, even as everyone else seemed to be coming to their senses.

Speaker 2 When the counter-protesters were finally able to escape from the mob, the torch marchers took the statue.

Speaker 2 Several of them climbed the plinth and cheered for the victory they'd won.

Speaker 2 Sieg Heil,

Speaker 2 hail victory, they shouted.

Speaker 2 Video shows Tyler Dykes pacing back and forth in front of the statue,

Speaker 2 right arm extended in a Nazi salute.

Speaker 14 This is Eva Longoria from Hungry for History with Eva Longoria and Maite Gomez Rejon. Hi, everyone.
Happy holidays. Let's talk about those two words, about keeping the holidays happy.

Speaker 14 Because let's be honest, even the happiest season could use a boost. You've got to take a minute for yourself, a little me time, and refill those joy reserves.
so there's still plenty left to share.

Speaker 14 Maybe that means taking a break from wrapping, planning, cooking, hosting, to recharge with a refreshing Coca-Cola. Ah, one sip and you're ready to hang more lights.
Sip and recharge your jolly now.

Speaker 14 Because self-care isn't selfish. It's necessary.

Speaker 14 Whether you're a holiday multitasker extraordinaire or the host with the most or I don't know, the actual Santa Claus, you deserve a moment to to reset.

Speaker 14 So if things are getting a little too jingly jangly, take a breath, center yourself, have a Coke, and get back out there refreshed, radiant, and ready to slay.

Speaker 14 Yes, I did. See how I did Santa Slay.
You're welcome.

Speaker 2 Enjoy your Coca-Cola.

Speaker 14 Refresh your holidays.

Speaker 15 Incoming with the old gays. It's Jessie, Bill, Robert, and Mick with a special bonus episode of Silver Linings with the Old Gays.

Speaker 15 No matter what time of year it is, we know it's important to uplift the spirit of pride, which is relatively easy when Palm Springs celebrates in November.

Speaker 16 The first pride I went to, it made me feel like I was really part of something.

Speaker 16 People being so joyous in the streets and being themselves.

Speaker 17 We've really come a long way and I realized I am standing on the shoulders of so many millions of queer people who sacrificed their lives for what we have today.

Speaker 15 Silver Linings with the Old Days is brought to you in partnership with iHeart's Ruby Studio and Viv Healthcare. Listen on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 6 We all take good care of the things that matter.

Speaker 7 Our homes, our pets, our cars.

Speaker 5 Are you doing the same for your brain?

Speaker 8 Acting early to protect brain health may help reduce the risk of dementia from conditions like Alzheimer's disease.

Speaker 5 Studies have found that up to 45% of dementia cases may be prevented or delayed by managing risk factors you can change.

Speaker 10 Make brain health a priority.

Speaker 11 Ask your doctor about your risk factors and for a cognitive assessment. Learn more at brainhealthmatters.com.

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Speaker 2 After the deadly rally the next morning, Tyler Dykes went home.

Speaker 2 He started at Cornell a few weeks later, but it didn't go well.

Speaker 2 He dropped out after a few months and enlisted in the Marines instead.

Speaker 2 And it seems like that may not have gone well either, because after a few months of training, he was discharged to the reserves and returned home, which was now South Carolina.

Speaker 2 He started an IT company, calling himself the Technology King of the Low Country, and made house calls to help suburban grandparents set up their Wi-Fi routers.

Speaker 2 And when he wasn't troubleshooting a customer's computer or going to church, he was hanging swastika banners from highway overpasses with his friends in the Southern Sons Active Club, a white supremacist organization operating in Georgia and the Carolinas, a regional cell of the larger international network of active clubs.

Speaker 2 These active clubs are, to put it succinctly, Nazi fight clubs.

Speaker 2 They were inspired by Robert Rondo's Rise Above Movement, the Southern California-based Nazi street fighting outfit that brawled their way across the country at right-wing political rallies throughout 2017.

Speaker 2 There is no centralized leadership or organizational structure. Active clubs operate regionally and are operationally independent from one another.

Speaker 2 They share a love of mixed martial arts, both as a hobby and as training for a coming race war, and engage in the kind of propaganda campaigns common among groups like Patriot Front.

Speaker 2 So hanging banners with racist slogans from bridges and plastering stickers on street signs and mailboxes around town.

Speaker 2 There are active clubs all over the United States, Canada, and Europe, as well as a faltering effort led by Thomas Sewell to get them going in Australia.

Speaker 2 Each club operates independently, but they network and meet up, even across national borders.

Speaker 2 And there is quite a bit of cross-pollination between the active clubs and other violent white supremacist organizations.

Speaker 2 They tend to be on good terms with groups like Patriot Front, and several notable active club members have ties to Adam Waffen and Terrogram.

Speaker 2 Andrew Takostov, the New Jersey teenager and Terragram Collective chat member arrested this summer, was a member of an active club cell in New Jersey.

Speaker 2 Active clubs in Finland are involved in paramilitary training of Karelian separatist groups that fight alongside the Russian Volunteer Corps, the same Nazi paramilitary group in Ukraine that Andrew Takastov was on his way to join when he was arrested.

Speaker 2 All that to say, this isn't just guys lifting weights together and talking about their love of the white race.

Speaker 2 Active Club members on multiple continents have been arrested for acts of violence and for planning acts of terrorism.

Speaker 2 And the reason I can tell you with an unusually high degree of certainty that Tyler Dykes was a member of the Southern Sons Active Club is because of one particular,

Speaker 2 no good, very bad day that he had on March 17th, 2023.

Speaker 2 You see, Tyler Dykes was indicted by a grand jury in Virginia in February of 2023.

Speaker 2 But he didn't know that.

Speaker 2 Nobody did.

Speaker 2 Grand juries are secret things, and his indictment stayed sealed until he was taken into custody.

Speaker 2 And with an out-of-state warrant, you don't just send a local cop down to get him. You could, I suppose, but they didn't.

Speaker 2 The local prosecutor where the charge is filed can ask cops in the city where they think he lives to go look for him, but they aren't always super interested in doing some out-of-town courts work for them.

Speaker 2 So, oftentimes, an out-of-state warrant just sort of sits open, waiting for you to step on it like a rake on the ground.

Speaker 2 If you've ever been pulled over, you've seen a cop take your license and walk back to his car.

Speaker 2 He's putting your name into a computer. And if you have an open warrant, he's going to find it.

Speaker 2 If you cross a border or go through TSA or get a speeding ticket or have really almost any kind of interaction with a cop, they're going to run your name.

Speaker 2 And in Tyler Dyke's case, he was sitting in an emergency room in South Carolina, making a police report about a dog bite.

Speaker 2 St. Patrick's Day is a big deal in Savannah, Georgia.

Speaker 2 I'm not entirely sure why, and that wasn't a rabbit hole I let myself pursue this week, but it is.

Speaker 2 I'm sure there's some particular moment in history where the city had an unusually high concentration of Irishmen, and the only lasting legacy is the nation's second most debaucherous green beer-soaked parade.

Speaker 2 I was in Savannah for St. Patrick's Day in 2008,

Speaker 2 but there was a tornado that weekend and the blackout closed most of the bar, so I don't think I got the full experience.

Speaker 2 And in 2023, the Southern Suns Active Club had the brilliant idea that St.

Speaker 2 Patrick's Day in Savannah would be the perfect time and the perfect place to hang a Nazi banner from a highway overpass because all the extra traffic in town meant more people would see their message.

Speaker 2 Thanks to an Atlanta-based anti-fascist research collective, we have an inside look at the private conversations Dykes and his friends had that day as they were going about trying to get that banner up.

Speaker 2 The day didn't start off well. The group had some trouble locating a good spot for their banner.

Speaker 2 They weren't the only ones who anticipated heavy traffic from tourists heading into town for the holiday. There were cops nearby several of the locations they'd hoped to hit.

Speaker 2 When they finally found a suitable spot, Tyler Dykes walked back to his car to get the tools they would need to hang the banner.

Speaker 2 But before he got back to his car, he encountered someone walking their dogs.

Speaker 2 Dykes claims that he was mauled by three pit bulls, but that seems like a bit of an overstatement.

Speaker 2 In the infiltrated group chat, he posted a photo of a small but unpleasant looking wound on his left pinky finger.

Speaker 2 I feel like you'd come away with more than a two-inch cut on your little finger if you were truly attacked by even one dog, let alone three pit bulls, but We only have Tyler's word on this one.

Speaker 2 A little before 6 p.m., he texted the Southern Sun's group chat that he was headed to the hospital to have his hand looked at.

Speaker 2 While he was waiting to be seen at the hospital, he texted the group chat again to let them know that the plan had gone awry and, unfortunately, they hadn't been able to hang any of the banners that day, writing, quite literally everything that could possibly have gone wrong all happened at exactly the same time.

Speaker 2 Half an hour later, though, something else went very wrong for Tyler Dykes.

Speaker 2 And he texted the group again, I'm being arrested by Virginia. Nuke my account.

Speaker 2 Dog bites, like gunshot wounds, are something that hospital staff are required to report to the authorities.

Speaker 2 While Tyler Dykes was waiting for a doctor to look at his hand, an officer arrived to take a police report.

Speaker 2 And when you talk to a cop in some official capacity, he's going to run your name.

Speaker 2 I can't can't even imagine his surprise when the officer informed him that he was a wanted fugitive in a state he hadn't visited in years.

Speaker 2 His hand was fine, it seems, and he was taken directly into custody from the emergency room that night.

Speaker 2 It took nearly a month to arrange for his extradition back to Virginia, during which time he remained in custody.

Speaker 14 This is Eva Longoria from Hungry for History with Eva Longoria and Maite Gomez Rejon. Hi, everyone.
Happy holidays. Let's talk about those two words about keeping the holidays happy.

Speaker 14 Because let's be honest, even the happiest season could use a boost. You've got to take a minute for yourself, a little me time, and refill those joy reserves.
So there's still plenty left to share.

Speaker 14 Maybe that means taking a break from wrapping, planning, cooking, hosting, to recharge with a refreshing Coca-Cola. Ah, one sip and you're ready to hang more lights.
Sip and recharge your jolly now.

Speaker 14 Because self-care isn't selfish. It's necessary.
Whether you're a holiday multitasker extraordinaire or the host with the most or I don't know, the actual Santa Claus, you deserve a moment to reset.

Speaker 14 So if things are getting a little too jingly jangly, take a breath. Center yourself, have a Coke, and get back out there, refreshed, radiant, and ready to slay.

Speaker 14 Yes, I did. See how I did, Santa, slay.
You're welcome.

Speaker 2 Enjoy your Coca-Cola.

Speaker 14 Refresh your holidays.

Speaker 15 Incoming with the old gays, it's Jessé, Bill, Robert, and Mick with a special bonus episode of Silver Linings with the Old Gays.

Speaker 15 No matter what time of year it is, we know it's important to uplift the spirit of pride, which is relatively easy when Palm Springs celebrates in November.

Speaker 16 The first pride I went to, it made me feel like I was really part of something.

Speaker 16 People being so joyous in the streets and being themselves.

Speaker 17 We've really come a long way and I realized I am standing on the shoulders of so many millions of queer people who sacrificed their lives for what we have today.

Speaker 15 Silver Linings with with the Old Days is brought to you in partnership with iHeart's Ruby Studio and Viv Healthcare. Listen on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 6 We all take good care of the things that matter.

Speaker 7 Our homes, our pets, our cars.

Speaker 5 Are you doing the same for your brain?

Speaker 8 Acting early to protect brain health may help reduce the risk of dementia from conditions like Alzheimer's disease.

Speaker 5 Studies have found that up to 45% of dementia cases may be prevented or delayed by managing risk factors you can change.

Speaker 10 Make brain health a priority.

Speaker 11 Ask your doctor about your risk factors and for a cognitive assessment. Learn more at brainhealthmatters.com.

Speaker 19 This is Tanya Radd from Scrubbing In with Becatilli and Tanya Radd. Airtasker is the platform that helps people get anything done.

Speaker 19 Furniture assembly, cleaning, repairs, errands, organizing, even those, can someone please handle this jobs? And during the holidays, it's a lifesaver.

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Speaker 19 Just go on Airtasker, describe what you need, set a budget, and choose the best tasker for the job. Airtasker, get anything done.
Download the app or go to airtasker.com.

Speaker 2 When Tyler Dykes was finally transported up to Virginia, his attorney asked for a bond hearing.

Speaker 2 Makes sense. He'd been in custody for a month.

Speaker 2 And it was at that April 2023 bond hearing that I first saw Tyler Dykes.

Speaker 2 At that hearing, Tyler Dykes' father, Scott, took the stand to tell the judge that if his son was allowed to return home with him, he would ensure that his son stayed out of trouble and would return for all of his court hearings.

Speaker 2 And then the prosecutor handed Scott Dykes a few pieces of paper.

Speaker 2 Is that your son?

Speaker 2 He asked.

Speaker 2 Scott Dykes was still staring down at the paper in his hands when he said softly, reluctantly,

Speaker 2 it looks like it could be.

Speaker 2 The pages in his hands were printed out stills from security camera footage showing a tall, dark-haired young man putting up flyers with swastikas on them in Sumter, South Carolina in November of 2020.

Speaker 2 The prosecutor asked Scott Dykes if he knew why his son had been discharged from the Marines.

Speaker 2 He didn't know.

Speaker 2 Tyler had apparently not even told his parents that he'd been given an other than honorable discharge.

Speaker 2 He didn't tell his parents that he'd been interviewed by an FBI agent from the Joint Terrorism Task Force in 2019,

Speaker 2 or that he was a suspect in the case of the Sumter County swastika stickers in 2020.

Speaker 2 The prosecutor didn't ask Scott Dykes where his son was on January 6th, 2021.

Speaker 2 Maybe he didn't know he should have.

Speaker 2 We know now that the FBI had been investigating Dykes' involvement in the insurrection since December of 2021, but they may not have shared that information with a county prosecutor.

Speaker 2 It was Dykes' own messages in the chat on the day of his arrest that left him in jail without bond after that hearing.

Speaker 2 Mere hours before his arrest on St. Patrick's Day, he was demonstrating what they call consciousness of guilt.
That is, behavior that shows you knew what you were doing was wrong.

Speaker 2 His messages show that he had attempted to evade police in order to find an overpass, which he planned to use tools to damage for the purpose of unfurling a racist banner.

Speaker 2 Then, upon learning of his arrest, he demonstrated a willingness to destroy evidence, asking other members of the white supremacist group to erase his participation, to nuke his account, and delete the chat so police couldn't read it on his phone once it was checked into evidence.

Speaker 2 In his ruling denying Bond, the judge told Dykes that day, this court can't believe you'll be on good behavior if released from custody.

Speaker 2 It was barely a month later that Tyler Dykes decided to plead guilty to the charge of burning an object with the intent to intimidate. The judge handed down a sentence of five years,

Speaker 2 the maximum under the statute, but suspended all but six months of it.

Speaker 2 I don't know if this is a common practice everywhere, but I see it almost all the time here in Virginia.

Speaker 2 The judge gives you a much longer sentence than he actually expects you to serve, and you just serve that little bit of your sentence, but that suspended portion hangs over you like a sword of Damocles that will fall if you get into any trouble during some set period of good behavior.

Speaker 2 With the time he'd already served before his extradition and credit for good behavior, he was scheduled to be released in July of 2023, just four months after after that terrible day in March.

Speaker 2 And here's where I wasted a whole day of my life.

Speaker 2 I was curious to see Tyler Dykes walk out of the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail.

Speaker 2 I can't explain now why I felt like that might be an interesting or important thing to see, and in retrospect, it really wouldn't have been.

Speaker 2 But I knew his scheduled release date, and I live nearby. I wasn't busy that day.

Speaker 2 So I thought I'd try.

Speaker 2 I got up early and drove to the jail. I packed snacks and drinks, and I was prepared to wait around for a couple of hours.

Speaker 2 I talked to a few people who'd been booked into ACRJ, and typically you get released sometime before lunch.

Speaker 2 But the hours passed.

Speaker 2 And they kept passing.

Speaker 2 I finished all the snacks I brought.

Speaker 2 I got bored. It was hot as hell, and I didn't want to run my car all day just for the AC.

Speaker 2 So I just sat there, sweating,

Speaker 2 waiting.

Speaker 2 I watched that damn door like a hawk as the hours passed.

Speaker 2 And then I got an email.

Speaker 2 I have all sorts of automated email alerts set up related to court cases and custody status of weird little guys all over the country.

Speaker 2 Guys, I just like to keep track of or might write about one day, or I don't know, just nosy.

Speaker 2 So, not a day goes by that I don't get some notification that somebody's filed a motion, or they're appealing something, or they've been transferred to another facility.

Speaker 2 It's always something.

Speaker 2 And there it was.

Speaker 2 A custody status change notification.

Speaker 2 I'd been sitting in the jail parking lot for seven hours waiting for a man who never did walk out the front door.

Speaker 2 This email is to inform you that Tyler Dykes with offender number 10651633 was released from custody on July 17, 2023.

Speaker 2 The release reason is

Speaker 2 other law enforcement agency.

Speaker 2 Other law enforcement agency.

Speaker 2 Usually the email says says bonded out or sentence served.

Speaker 2 But this one said

Speaker 2 other law enforcement agency.

Speaker 2 That means he wasn't released at all. That means some kind of cop from somewhere else picked him up.

Speaker 2 He never walked out the front door because he'd been driven out the side entrance in a nondescript looking SUV with a U.S. Marshal at the wheel.

Speaker 2 I had to wait until the following morning for the federal charging documents to show up in the system.

Speaker 2 So it wasn't until July of 2023 that I finally knew what the FBI had known for a year and a half. Tyler Dykes fought his way into the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Speaker 2 He was charged in a 10-count indictment with robbery, civil disorder, two counts of assaulting, resisting, or impeding an officer with a dangerous dangerous weapon, entering or remaining in a restricted building, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, engaging in physical violence in a Capitol building, and picketing in a Capitol building.

Speaker 2 He was released on bond shortly after being transferred into federal custody, and in addition to the standard rules of pretrial release, the judge specifically mandated that he have no contact with members of the Southern Sons Active Club or any related group while out on bond.

Speaker 2 And he was ordered to live in his parents' home and keep to a strict curfew.

Speaker 2 In April of 2024, he accepted a plea agreement that dropped eight of the 10 charges of the indictment, pleading guilty only to the two counts of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers, and with the dangerous weapon element dropped.

Speaker 2 With no trial, some questions about this case will probably never get answered.

Speaker 2 In December of 2021, the FBI received an anonymous tip from someone who said Dykes told them he had entered the Capitol on January 6th.

Speaker 2 The full text of the tip is printed in a filing by the government.

Speaker 2 The suspect is Tyler Dykes. lives in Bluffton, South Carolina.
I was with Dykes and we started talking about the January 6th attack. We had differing opinions about it, but was respectful.

Speaker 2 He then told me about how he went into the Capitol with a mask on with the other rioters and started beating up police officers.

Speaker 2 He states he was still in the military at the time. He said he has video evidence of him being there, but he did not show me since we were in a public setting.

Speaker 2 He was there for fun. and wanting to make a statement.
He was there with other group of people but would not state who.

Speaker 2 I believe he was telling the truth about it, and I believe he needs to be investigated.

Speaker 2 The agent assigned to investigate the tip confirmed the source's identification of Dykes through typical investigative means, things like issuing a subpoena to his cell phone provider, comparing footage from the Capitol to the suspect's DMV photo, and so on.

Speaker 2 But he had an extra source this time, something an FBI agent doesn't usually have at his disposal when he investigates an anonymous tip like this.

Speaker 2 He already knew what Tyler Dykes looked like.

Speaker 2 He had met Tyler Dykes before.

Speaker 2 The agent assigned to follow up on this tip was the one who had interviewed Dykes in January of 2019 regarding his potential ties to domestic extremist groups.

Speaker 2 No additional information was offered in this affidavit about the circumstances that prompted their first meeting, whether any follow-up investigation was done, or if that investigation was at the request of or reported to the Marine Corps, or even which extremist group the FBI believed he was involved in in 2019.

Speaker 2 Because it couldn't have been the Southern Suns Active Club. The Active Club network didn't really exist that early on, back in January of 2019, and the Southern Sons chapter certainly didn't.

Speaker 2 The agent doesn't give me even a crumb to work with here, so I don't know.

Speaker 2 And whatever it was about, that wasn't what led to Dykes' discharge from the Marines.

Speaker 2 The military records filed in this case are sealed, but references made to them specifically cite those November 2020 swastika flyers in Sumter County, South Carolina as the reason for his discharge.

Speaker 2 And that's as much concrete information as we're likely ever going to get about the reason for his removal from the military.

Speaker 2 In a text found on his phone after his arrest, Dykes had sent a photo of his discharge letter to someone.

Speaker 2 He claimed he was being discharged, quote, for being incredibly political with my fellow Marines after the 2020 election.

Speaker 2 Incredibly political.

Speaker 2 When he was interviewed by the probation office for the pre-sentence investigation report in his federal criminal case, he lied.

Speaker 2 He told the probation office that he was asked to leave the military after not reporting for drill.

Speaker 2 And that wasn't the only time he lied.

Speaker 2 The government sentencing memorandum also indicates that despite his willingness to plead guilty to the charges, to be honest about his conduct on that day, he was not truthful in his final interview with federal agents.

Speaker 2 The terms of his plea agreement required his cooperation with the ongoing investigation into the events of January 6th.

Speaker 2 Part of that agreement was a final debrief interview with federal agents, which was conducted on June 28th, 2024.

Speaker 2 In that interview, Dykes again told agents that he left his home in South Carolina mid-morning on January 5th and arrived in DC that evening.

Speaker 2 Sometime after dark, but early enough to have dinner with his friends before checking into his hotel for the night.

Speaker 2 And that's not true,

Speaker 2 because his cell phone tells a very different story.

Speaker 2 Records obtained from Verizon show that his phone was in Marathon, Florida at 3:20 p.m. on January 5th.

Speaker 2 A little before 8 p.m., he took a photo with his cell phone of a slip printed by an American Airlines kiosk at the Miami airport, indicating that he would need to see a ticket agent for assistance.

Speaker 2 His phone pinged again an hour outside his home in South Carolina at 12.30 a.m. on January 6th.

Speaker 2 No clear conclusion is drawn in the memo. The prosecutor doesn't write out exactly what he thinks this means.

Speaker 2 But it appears that Dykes drove 1,300 miles from the Florida Keys to Washington, D.C.

Speaker 2 overnight after unsuccessfully trying to board a flight in Miami.

Speaker 2 It would be very hard to forget driving for 20 hours and then immediately fighting your way inside the United States Capitol. Even three years after the fact, that's not something you'd forget, is it?

Speaker 2 It seems far more likely that he chose to conceal his activities in the lead up to January 6th.

Speaker 2 But why?

Speaker 2 It seems unlikely now that the DOJ would choose to pursue additional charges. Although, remember, it is a federal crime to lie to an FBI agent.

Speaker 2 And it obviously wasn't something they cared enough about to ask the judge to reject the plea agreement, which they could have.

Speaker 2 Whatever he was hiding about his trip to Florida the day before the insurrection, he must have felt like it was worth the possibility of a lot of extra prison time to keep it to himself.

Speaker 2 The government sentencing memo also details some of what was found on Dykes' phone. In the Southern Sun's group chat, he used the name nocturnal wolf.

Speaker 2 The prosecutor who prepared the memo included several examples of materials found on the phone related to the pseudonym, things about wolves.

Speaker 2 One of those little odds and ends about wolves was the front cover of a Terragram collective publication called Do It for the Gram,

Speaker 2 which bears the phrase faceless lone wolf.

Speaker 2 The prosecutor makes no mention of the contents of the document or the fact that it is a 300-page manual on how to commit varying acts of terrorism.

Speaker 2 It seems he was perhaps unaware that he'd stumbled across a piece of neo-Nazi terrorist propaganda.

Speaker 2 There's no transcript of his sentencing filed in the case, but NBC's Ryan J.

Speaker 2 Riley reported that, quote, Dykes did not distance himself from extremist ideologies, nor did he say he no longer believes the former president's lies about the election.

Speaker 2 His biggest expression of regret seemed to be for his elderly parents, who adopted him as a child and who are still providing him with a monthly allowance.

Speaker 2 Dykes was given a few months to get his affairs in order after being sentenced to 57 months back in July.

Speaker 2 The day before he was scheduled to turn himself in to begin serving his sentence, he filed a last-minute motion asking for just one more month.

Speaker 2 The reasons he gave were a series of doctor's doctor's appointments that he needed to drive his 86-year-old father to.

Speaker 2 The judge was unimpressed by Dice's desire to drive his dad to the gastroenterologist and denied the motion.

Speaker 2 He reported to prison last week on October 9th, 2024.

Speaker 2 If you don't have any disciplinary issues, you typically serve 85% of federal time. So he could be released as early as October of 2028.

Speaker 2 Just in time for the next presidential election.

Speaker 2 Weird Little Guys is a production of CoolZone Media and iHeartRadio. It's researched, written, and recorded by me, Molly Conger.
Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans.

Speaker 2 The show is edited by the wildly talented Rory Gagan. The theme music was composed by Brad Dickert.
You can email me at weirdlittleguyspodcast at gmail.com.

Speaker 2 I will definitely read it, but I almost certainly will not answer it. It's nothing personal.
I don't answer any of my emails.

Speaker 2 You can exchange conspiracy theories about the show with other listeners on the Weird Little Guys subreddit.

Speaker 2 Just don't post anything that's going to make you one of my Weird Little Guys.

Speaker 20 What's up, everyone? This is Angel, Diego, and Jason, and we're a Gustav About Podcast. Siemporciento, musica regional mexicana, pero veces uno que tro chisme.

Speaker 20 Holiday season's here, and the studio is feeling festive. We got the tracks, the exclusives, yes, sprite winter spice cranberry bien frio.
That refreshing cranberry flavor, it's just right.

Speaker 20 A seasonal favorite, but limited time only. So don't sleep on it to keep your fiestas festive.
Adarle. Flo frio, con sprite winter spice cranberry.

Speaker 2 Obey your thirst.

Speaker 19 This is Tanya Rad from Scrubbing In with Becca Tilly and Tanya Radd. Air Tasker is the platform that helps people get anything done.

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