In a previous column for the Stream, I warned that if Donald Trump is defeated at the polls tomorrow, it could land all of us people of faith and advocates for freedom in prison. The hyperbole was grounded in the growing reality of leftist state tyranny. (Just ask P’Nut the squirrel, if you can locate his remains.)

Leftist state tyranny is not some mere hypothetical. There are actual political prisoners in the United States right now — who have either been wrongly jailed or given disproportionate sentences, or who are in danger of it — who are pleading with you to vote for President Trump.

It can seem an abstract threat, if you don’t know any of them personally. As it happens, I do know one: a young man still in his twenties whom I have watched grow up. And what the Biden-Harris Department of Justice has tried to do to him makes me sick.

‘A Nice Kid from a Good Family’

Richard Crosby, Jr’s family lived down the street from mine here in Waterbury, Connecticut, for several years. Ricky’s little sisters (we all knew him as “Ricky”)were my daughters’ playmates. The Crosbys are a devout evangelical family who attend a small, independent Baptist Church. They were the Baptist homeschoolers, we were the Catholic homeschoolers, and we were delighted to share a neighborhood with each other.

Family Institute of Connecticut President Peter Wolfgang (left) was pleased to host Ricky Crosby (second from right) and his parents at an annual gala recently. The Crosbys were the Wolfgang family’s longtime neighbors.

The Crosbys were not QAnon or Christian Nationalists (or whatever slur by which the secular left tries to demonize the normal churchgoing folk whom Tim Walz considers “weird”). They were utterly mainstream in their evangelical faith. You would see them at the Family Research Council’s Value Voters Summit, or the kids at Teen Pact, or their dad at the Iron Sharpens Iron men’s conference. Several of them, including Ricky, have just recently attended the Family Institute of Connecticut’s annual banquet, where keynote speaker Eric Metaxas warned of exactly the sort of state tyranny I’ve been warning you about.

And Ricky himself? He’s always been a nice kid from a good family. We often saw him outside the local market, playing his fiddle for the customers.

Like many young men, Ricky has strong convictions. Even had he not been raised in a good Christian home, I think he would have found his way to them. You see it happening with young men everywhere these days. As Mary Eberstadt recently wrote, “The mystery isn’t that many of today’s young men are deserting the side that loathes them and fears them and sometimes longs to queer them.”

And so Ricky joined the crowd at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. This article from Hearst Connecticut Media gives the details of his actions that day and his subsequent legal trouble. That’s Ricky in the photo, standing right next to the famous “QAnon Shaman,” waving his Bible.

A First-Person Account

Photo Credit: U.S. Attorney

But I think it’s best if you hear it from Ricky in his own words. This is an excerpt from a long letter he wrote that was published yesterday in the Waterbury Republican-American:

For the past several years, I have had a front-row seat to this lawfare. On January 6, 2021, I went to Washington D.C. to “peacefully and patriotically” make my voice heard and to protest the fraud that I believe took place in our last presidential election. I did enter the Capitol building, but like most others, I did so through an open door. I was nonconfrontational and did not resort to violence to make my point. When asked to leave by Capitol Police, I did so promptly.

Several months later, I got a visit from the FBI. I spoke with them plainly and truthfully about my actions that day. I would later find that my statements to the FBI were twisted and misrepresented in the criminal complaint that was filed shortly thereafter. In June 2021, an FBI task force swarmed my home in the early morning and took me into custody. I was indicted on six counts, including “Obstruction of an Official Proceeding”, a felony which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. For over three years, this case dragged on, limiting my freedom to travel and causing me great financial harm.

Finally, in June of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision in Fischer v. United States that the “Obstruction” statute had been misapplied in what Chief Justice [John] Roberts called “a novel interpretation … exposing activists and lobbyists alike to decades in prison.”

This decision was a big win for the hundreds of protesters who had been prosecuted under this statute. I recently reached a resolution short of trial and was convicted of four misdemeanor charges instead. Unfortunately, much of the harm had already been done; especially concerning the many defendants who will likely have their convictions overturned, but have already served time for a charge that should have never been brought.

According to the Republican-American, Ricky could still face up to two years in prison when he is sentenced in February.

Vote for Freedom

For the record, I have never been a fan of the January 6 riot. Even if, as seems likely, the 2020 election was rigged in multiple ways, it was too late by then to do anything about it. Sending a mob to the U.S. Capitol on the cockamamie legal theory that the vice president could single-handedly delay certification of an election [as some people allege was done] was an error. It merely handed the American Left its version of a “Reichstag Fire” to hang around our necks for the rest of our lives.

But the Democrats and the media have lied about January 6 ever since. It was not an “insurrection.” The bare-chested guy in the coyote headdress who lived in his mom’s basement was not going to come out of that thing to become the next Secretary of Defense. I don’t think the people who use the word “insurrection” even know what it means.

But Ricky didn’t deserve any of this. A slap on the wrist, at most — not what our leftist state authoritarians have put him and score of others through, including not only J6 defendants, but pro-life political prisoners, parents deemed to be “domestic terrorists” for objecting to gender ideology at board of education meetings, and yes, P’Nut the squirrel.

It was brave of Ricky to write that letter to the editor. If Kamala Harris wins this election tomorrow, it won’t help him at his sentencing in February. If she could, I think she would personally lock up a lot of the people I just mentioned. She’s like that.

But contrary to what you have heard, Trump is not like that. Which is why you have to vote for him tomorrow, if you have not done so already.

If Trump wins, I hope he pardons Ricky and many others. In fact, I hope he holds a pardoning ceremony with Ricky standing right behind him.

Then maybe the J6ers could start holding annual January 6 reenactment ceremonies, like Civil War reenactments. It would serve AOC, and everyone else who has lied about that day, right to see Ricky up there with his Bible again, next to the QAnon Shaman.

This time, I might even attend. Go, Ricky. Go, Trump!

Peter Wolfgang is president of Family Institute of Connecticut Action. He lives in Waterbury, Connecticut, with his wife and their seven children. The views expressed on The Stream are solely his own.