A New York woman and her son have been arrested and charge with theft in aiding the disappearance of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s laptop during the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
Maryann Mooney-Rondon, 55, and her son, Rafael Rondon, 23, of Watertown, New York, were both arrested by the FBI in connection with the stolen laptop, and also face other charges related to the riot at the Capitol.
Rafael also faces charges for possession of an unregistered and sawed-off shotgun.
The two appeared in a federal court in Syracuse on Friday morning and were released pending further proceedings.
According to a statement of facts documented by an FBI special agent, the mother admitted to both being in the Capitol and in Pelosi’s conference room, and allegedly provided gloves or a scarf to cover fingerprints to another man stealing Pelosi’s laptop.
“He asked, he said, give me – I don’t know if it was gloves or a scarf I was wearing – and like I said he scared me,” the documents quotes her as saying.
Mooney-Rondon went on to explain the man was going to yank the laptop by the ethernet cable, until she told him it would “ruin everything,” and to just take the computer. She says she believes she saw the man put the laptop in his backpack. The son said the man was using the glove or scarf to keep fingerprints off from it. “So I assisted him a little bit, and that was probably stupid of me,” he’s quoted in the document as saying.
The two then went to the Senate Gallery and left when they saw it was overrun with protesters.