A judge sentenced her to 60 days behind bars.
“For better or worse, you’ve become one of the faces of January 6,” U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper (Obama) of D.C. told Jenna Ryan, 50. She gained national attention by defending her conduct at the Capitol in media interviews and on Twitter. Because of that notoriety, Cooper said, people would look to her sentence as evidence of “how our country responded to what happened.”
He continued, “I think the sentence should tell them that we take it seriously, that it was an assault on our democracy … and that it should never happen again.”
In sentencing Ryan to 60 days in custody, he cited her apparent lack of remorse for her conduct, as well as her decision to join the mob, not directly from President Donald Trump’s rally that morning but after going back to her hotel and seeing television footage of a mob besieging the Capitol.
“You’ve been very upfront that you feel no sense of shame or guilt,” Cooper said. “You suggested antifa was somehow involved. And perhaps most famously, you said that because you had blonde hair and white skin, you wouldn’t be going to jail.”
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said Ryan ― a Texas real estate agent who flew to D.C. on a private plane and promoted her business as she livestreamed in the Capitol ― played a “lesser role in the criminal conduct that took place” than many others did. “But that does not mean that you don’t have any culpability in what happened that day,” Cooper said.
When she chose to leave her hotel room, she knew that she was going to something that wasn’t a peaceful protest, Cooper said.
“I don’t think you could have missed the fact that this was no peaceful protest,” Cooper said. “You were a cheerleader, you cheered it on.”
She was found guilty of a Class B federal misdemeanor. The maximum sentence is 6 months. – jaye
