Who is the former Chapel Hill restaurant owner charged with assaulting police officers at the Capitol insurrection?

The FBI says this photo from the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol shows former Frutta Bowls co-owner Julian Elie Khater holding a can that appears to contain a chemical spray. He is accused of spraying the chemical into the faces of three officers. Source.

Julian Elie Khater, an owner of recently closed Franklin Street Restaurant Frutta Bowls, was charged in the assault of a Capitol Police officer during the insurrection on January 6, 2021. 

In January, hundreds of protestors stormed the US Capitol in reaction to the 2020 Presidential Election results. They claimed the election was fraudulent and that Donald Trump should have been pronounced the winner, despite having no evidence to support their claims. This incident resulted in several injuries and five deaths. One of the people whose death is thought to be linked to the insurrection is police officer Brian D. Sicknick.

Police body camera footage, along with other picture/video sources, show Sicknick and two other officers being sprayed with a chemical gas by Khater and another suspect, George Pierre Tanios. The officers were temporarily blinded after being hit with the chemical. All of the officers who were sprayed suffered injuries and scaring around points of contact. The chemical was said to be as strong or stronger than the pepper spray used in police training. Khater and Tanios were allegedly conspiring to use this chemical to attack other officers as well. Earlier footage shows Tanios telling Khater not to use the chemicals because “it’s still early.” Sicknick died the next day. The arrest reports do not link the chemical attack to Sicknick’s death. There is an ongoing investigation looking into the cause.

Khater and Tanios were each charged with civil disorder, assault on a federal officer with a dangerous weapon, violence on restricted grounds, and obstructing an official proceeding. If found guilty, they could face 20 years in prison. They are both originally from New Jersey and people who knew them at the time say they grew up together. Both of them moved away from New Jersey and started college restaurant businesses. Tanios started Sandwich U, a restaurant near West Virginia University. He was wearing a Sandwich U sweatshirt while storming the Capitol on January 6.

However, Khater took a different path that led him to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He and his brothers owned Frutta Bowls health food cafe on Franklin Street until it closed and he moved to Pennsylvania to start another college smoothie shop, which is now also closing. Though he never officially had a North Carolina address, both his LinkedIn profile and past interviews indicate he was the owner of the Chapel Hill establishment for over a year. A former UNC student and Frutta Bowls employee said Khater seemed to be a normal manager who joked about politics with his staff a bit but did nothing out of the ordinary. 

Over 300 other people have been charged with assault due to their involvement in the riot, and 40 others have been charged with assaulting an officer.