Who Paid to Bring This Circus to Jacksonville?

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Nov 9

The pardoned Jan. 6 rioter brought slurs to Monday's Duval school board meeting under police guard. His campaign shows almost no money. The hundreds of thousands raised in his name online don't have to be accounted for.

By Joseph J. Jackson | JACKSONVILLE (Nov. 9, 2026)

Jake Lang, the pardoned Jan. 6 rioter who has spent the past year staging anti-Muslim confrontations around the country, called Muslims "cockroaches" during public comment at Monday night's Duval County School Board meeting, according to video reviewed by Florida Man News Network.

The footage was posted by the Duval School News Facebook group at 8:21 p.m. In the opening seconds, Lang calls Muslims "cockroaches," stressing the word. Later, he tells Black speakers who objected that they were "chimpin' out."

Uniformed officers stayed at Lang's side, between him and the crowd, as he made that remark. In the video, an officer tells Lang to be quiet. A second clip shows officers standing in formation around Lang, sealing him off from the rest of the room.

Lang travels the country doing this: Dearborn, Minneapolis, Texas, Seattle and now Jacksonville, with cameras, a security detail and lawyers in several states. Who pays for it is an open question. His Senate campaign reported raising less than $6,000 from donors in 21 months. Meanwhile, crowdfunding pages in his name have drawn hundreds of thousands of dollars that no law requires him to account for. FMNN followed the money as far as public records go. (See "Follow the money" below.)

Photos and video from inside the board room show Lang at the public-comment podium in a tactical-style vest, shouting and pointing toward the audience. Lang had promoted his appearance in advance on his own social media accounts.

The group admin who posted the video said Lang "and his crew" came to the meeting. A Threads user who said he was there wrote that some people in the crowd stood and cheered.

It was not clear from the clips who was presiding when Lang spoke, or whether he was warned or cut off. FMNN has asked Duval County Public Schools for comment.

A week of anger over Ricardo's post

Lang's appearance came during a meeting where Muslim parents planned to confront board member Tony Ricardo. Earlier this month, Ricardo reposted a graphic calling Islam "a political cult masquerading as a faith."

Action News Jax reported Monday afternoon that community organizer Ranna Abduljawad and a group of Muslim mothers planned to bring signs and speak during public comment. Duval GOP Chair Charles Barr told the station he would not ask Ricardo to step aside.

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan, City Council member Jimmy Peluso, the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida and the interfaith group OneJax have all criticized the post. Several of Ricardo's fellow board members said an apology was owed. Jacksonville Today reported that the group behind the graphic has ties to Lang.

Who is Jake Lang

Lang was charged with attacking police officers with a bat during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. He spent about four years in jail awaiting trial before President Trump pardoned him in January 2025. He then launched a bid for Sen. Ashley Moody's seat but never qualified for Florida's ballot.

Since his pardon, Lang has taken his anti-Muslim message to public meetings in Dearborn, Michigan, and in Frisco and Fort Worth, Texas. In June, he was removed from a Fort Worth school board meeting after targeting a Muslim principal.

Monday's slur wasn't new. Before his Dearborn march in August, Lang told a Detroit church audience that "third worlders" in the city were "multiplying like cockroaches," Baptist News Global reported.

Charged with threatening to kill a Texas teen

Lang walked into Duval's board room with a felony charge pending in Texas. In June, he was arrested on a third-degree felony count of making a terroristic threat. Prosecutors say that outside the Collin County courthouse, during the murder trial of teenager Karmelo Anthony, Lang was recorded saying he would shoot Anthony in the head. Prosecutors played the livestream in court.

Lang's bond was first set at $1 million, then lowered to $250,000. As a condition of release, he was ordered out of Texas and barred from returning except for court dates. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.

Lang also faces felony charges in Minnesota, where he is accused of destroying an anti-ICE sculpture on the state Capitol grounds.

Follow the money

Lang's travel, security, cameras and lawyers cost real money. Almost none of it shows up in public records.

His U.S. Senate committee, Jake Lang for Senate Inc., raised $5,938 from donors in 21 months, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Most of the committee's $32,876 came from a single source: a $26,938 loan from Lang himself in March 2025, about nine weeks after his pardon. The loan has never been repaid. Since a March 2026 amendment, Lang has also been listed as the committee's treasurer.

On the loan, Lang listed his employer as "Liberty Centric LLC." Liberty Centric is Lang's own brand: a "Facebook for Conservatives" social app he has called himself the founder of since 2021, sold on Apple's App Store under his personal name. FMNN could not locate a state registration for a Liberty Centric LLC in Florida or national business databases. The brand's website now advertises app-building services for "patriots, churches and conservatives," claiming more than 250 apps shipped and 47 million users. FMNN could not verify any of those claims. The app itself has four ratings on the App Store.

The committee's biggest check, $18,000, went to TLM Global LLC of Vero Beach for videos, graphics and PR. State records list Edward Szall as the firm's manager. Szall is a producer of the anti-vaccine film "Died Suddenly" and appeared with Lang on a 2024 episode of the Conservative Daily Podcast. The committee reported raising and spending nothing from July through September.

The bigger money moves through GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site, where pages don't have to report how money is spent. A "J6 Legal Fund" Lang created while jailed shows $588,965 raised. The page promises that 100% goes to Jan. 6 defendants' legal costs, but also says the funds "will be received by Jake Lang." A "Jan 6th Truth Fund" paid to Lang shows $242,879. A "Hospital & Future Security Fund" he opened in January had drawn more than $63,000 by September, with more than $18,600 arriving June 9 to 20, the days around his Texas arrest, according to a tally of GiveSendGo's public records by independent researcher Christopher Sweat.

Those aren't the only appeals. Independent writer Shane Deitert has counted at least five GiveSendGo pages tied to Lang since 2021, including funds for his family and jail commissary and for "rebuilding" after Jan. 6. A "Free Jake Lang" website steers donors to a "legal defense fund." Deitert also reports a pro-Lang fundraising site that offers recurring donor levels up to $1,000 a month and tells donors 22% goes to travel. Lang also raises money directly on X; in June, he asked followers for "$100k to bail him out."

That's the gap. His campaign committee has to tell the FEC who gave and how every dollar was spent, and it shows almost nothing. A registered charity would have to file with the IRS and, to ask Floridians for money, register with the state. Personal crowdfunding pages don't have to do either. The bulk of the money given to Lang has gone through the channels the public can't see into.

In September, Lang was listed as a director of a new Florida nonprofit, Operation Sound Off Inc., filed through LegalZoom with three Palm Beach County residents. It has no federal tax ID on file, hasn't filed an annual report, and FMNN found no website or donation page for it. (It is not connected to Sound Off, a San Antonio veterans' mental-health charity.)

FMNN found no record of foreign money behind Lang. His FEC filings show no PAC or organizational donors, and his crowdfunding donors aren't publicly disclosed. FMNN has asked Lang who pays for his travel and legal costs, where the money he loaned his campaign came from, how much of the J6 Legal Fund went to other defendants, whether Liberty Centric LLC is registered anywhere and what it pays him, who posted his $250,000 Texas bond, and what Operation Sound Off is for and whether it raises money.

No CAIR in the room

Lang showed up four days after Florida's largest Muslim civil-rights group went dark. CAIR-Florida suspended its operations on Nov. 5, after a federal judge refused to block the state's designation of the group as a domestic terrorist organization. CAIR says it will appeal.

FMNN has reached out to Lang, Duval County Public Schools, board members April Carney and Tony Ricardo, the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida, OneJax and CAIR National. This story will be updated.

Sources

Jake LangDuval County SchoolsJacksonvilleTony RicardoIslamophobiaCampaign FinanceJanuary 6CAIRGiveSendGo

Joseph Jackson