Metal Mike Locked Down: Michael Curzio’s January 6 Story Unfiltered

There are many stories about January 6 that fall by the wayside. Some January 6 defendants got extensive media coverage, especially in the immediate aftermath of January 6, but this is not representative of the overall body. Most defendants have remained nameless, faceless hostages. Real Americans have been rendered as caricatures as a way of pigeonholing them and glossing over the real experiences of that complicated day.

Reminder that most people on January 6 were entirely peaceful and were outraged over seeing American citizens hit with tear gas and flash bang grenades. January 6 was instigated by a handful of agitators in the crowds and malicious/incompetent officers failing to do their jobs… pic.twitter.com/1gV9oKZSI8

— Tim Hale – Criminally Funny J6er (@LouisofMonmouth) July 17, 2024

Michael Curzio was one of the first January 6 defendants and one of the handful actually arrested inside the Capitol building on January 6. He was apprehended in the middle of trying to record excessive police force inside the Capitol Visitor Center, only feet away from me. Curzio was taken through the Capitol and into underground tunnels in Washington, D.C., to a police station, where he was processed, given a citation and a notice to appear, and released on his recognizance.

Despite being ticketed for misdemeanors, he would be rearrested later on in his home state of Florida. He was raided on the road, threatened by an officer with having his face shot off, and all over misdemeanors. Curzio was denied bail by a Magistrate Judge, despite having nonviolent charges, and forced to experience “diesel therapy,” shuffled around the country by the US Marshals. It was in Oklahoma that he was housed in the general population in a maximum security prison before linking up with a group of January 6 defendants, including myself. Michael Curzio, myself, Jeffrey Sabol, and Patrick McCaughey III would begin the tradition among January 6 hostages of singing the national anthem together while still being moved by the Marshals before boarding “Con Air.”

Michael Curzio and I arrived in the DC jail, or the “DC Gulag,” on February 3, 2021. Like the rest of us, Curzio was denied bond and again again by his District Judge. Judge Carl Nichols, ironically considered one of the fairest judges after his rulings on 18 USC 1512 (agreed with by a majority of SCOTUS), yet forced Curzio to stay housed in solitary confinement with myself and others in the C2B wing of the DC jail’s Central Treatment Facility (the “Patriot Pod”).

“Metal Mike” Curzio is a metal musician and talented vocalist. Curzio became a staple of life inside the DC jail. While locked down most of the day, every day, he entertained the inmates by singing loud enough to fill the entire wing of the jail, including his song “LockDown.”

For the majority of his time in DC, he was in the cell next to mine. I was in Cell #16 (or 1/6 as it was called), and Mike was in Cell #15. I had the pleasure of watching him create several songs while incarcerated, including “Patriot Anthem.” He has since made professionally recorded versions of his classic songs. Whether his own songs like “Pursuit and Destroy” or song covers like Disturbed’s “Stupify,” Metal Mike kept dozens of political prisoners entertained while locked in solitary.

Michael became a member of the custodian team early on, joining the sole detail member at the time, Cleveland Grover Meredith. He cleaned the pod, served meals, relayed messages, etc. This role allowed Curzio more time out of his jail cell which was the only way he could reach his family by phone.

Curzio ended up taking a misdemeanor plea deal upon learning of his father’s stage 4 cancer. Initially, Judge Nichols refused to allow him to plead guilty, stalling to allow the DOJ to find felonious behavior to form a basis for a felony indictment.

I synced @MetalMikeCurzio‘s cell phone footage from the Senate Wing Door hallway with CCTV. Sure enough, at the end of the hallway you hear a protestor tell another man “It’s that way. That’s why they’re not letting us go *that* way.” Capitol PD were only blocking some hallways. pic.twitter.com/j7vzhV8Xns

— Tim Hale – Criminally Funny J6er (@LouisofMonmouth) January 2, 2025

They found nothing because, as CCTV shows, he spent his time peacefully walking through the Capitol building after it had been opened up from the inside. Not only had Curzio not harmed or threatened an officer, he repeatedly encouraged law enforcement, fist-bumped and shook hands with Capitol Police, etc.

Wow, @MetalMikeCurzio, what kind of scumbag has peaceful conversations with Capitol Police inside the Capitol, thanks them for their service, and pats them on the back? You deserved that half a year in solitary, you January 6 insurrectionist! pic.twitter.com/W9A5LOXIEo

— Tim Hale – Criminally Funny J6er (@LouisofMonmouth) January 4, 2025

The worst Curzio did was attempt to record Police attacking protestors in the Capitol Visitor Center. I was there myself and witnessed this. I myself was even chastised in Court for attempting to help a man off the ground I thought the Capitol Police had injured. Even then, CCTV and personal cell phone video shows that we spent about 10 minutes talking to the Capitol Police peacefully inside the Capitol Visitor Center before being led out of the building-

Remember when January 6 defendant Katelyn Bartow gave a speech in the Capitol Visitor Center which ended the hostility between protestors and Capitol Police and then both sides spoke to eachother like responsible citizens and hugged it out but Katelyn was charged anyway? Weird.… pic.twitter.com/twAYuMDARo

— Tim Hale – Criminally Funny J6er (@LouisofMonmouth) January 11, 2024

This chapter of January 6 was suppressed because it hurt the narrative that people who went inside the Capitol were a violent mob. Contrary to what a rational person would expect, the “insurrection” was less violent inside the Capitol building than outside.

When Judge Nichols realized he couldn’t hold Michael Curzio longer for a felony charge that wasn’t coming he finally accepted a guilty plea. Almost unheard of, even for January 6 defendants, Nichols forced Curzio to serve the maxed out sentence for his misdemeanor charge of 6 months. Curzio was sentenced at 2 days short of 6 months. Nichols refused to give Curzio time served, making him served the remaining 2 days in the DC Gulag, in one of the most petty rulings delivered by the handful of judges to handle January 6 cases.

Mike has since rebuilt his life. I had the pleasure of reconnecting with him, after 3 years of my own incarceration, and recorded the first of many interviews I’ll be releasing with the original inmates of the DC Gulag. This is January 6 Unfiltered with Michael Curzio:

It doesn’t stop there. Now that my conviction has been overturned in court, and my supervised release conditions are gone, I can speak freely with the patriots I languished with behind bars in the DC Gulag. With each day, more and more signed on to tell their story. What really happened on January 6, how they were smeared by the feds and media, and what they suffered through while locked up.

My phone has been on fire today as I reconnected with many of the men I was incarcerated with after January 6. And I’m now prepared to unveil a project that has been simmering in my head some time.

For 3 years after January 6, as I and other J6 political prisoners languished… pic.twitter.com/mForP3n8Ky

— Tim Hale – Criminally Funny J6er (@LouisofMonmouth) December 26, 2024

These interviews, along with hundreds of pages of primary documents, will form the basis for a multi-volume history series, Artifice and Betrayal: The History of the DC Gulag. Now that their voices have been restored, the defendants will be the ones to write the authoritative history of January 6 and the lawfare that followed, not the prosecutors and media. To learn more about “Metal Mike” Curzio in the meantime you can find him HERE.

Michael Curzio was misrepresented as a white supremacist, denied due process, and held in solitary confinement. He lost everything. Now he’s free, employed, with a roof over his head and a loving wife in his life. Metal Mike is proof that there is a future for those persecuted over January 6. To those hostages of the Biden regime who’ve suffered greatly – there are new beginnings over the horizon.

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