Police release tear gas into a crowd of pro-Trump protesters during clashes at a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, January 6, 2021.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
A 49-year-old woman from Indiana will serve no prison time in the first criminal sentence related to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Anna Morgan-Lloyd was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay $500 in restitution after pleading guilty to one charge of misdemeanor disorderly conduct, the Times reported, citing court records.
Morgan-Lloyd said she went to Washington on Jan. 6 to support then-President Donald Trump, and later posted about her participation in the riots on social media, according to the Times. At the hearing, Morgan-Lloyd said she regretted engaging in the riots despite causing no harm to any individual or property, the Times reported.
“At first it didn’t dawn on me, but later I realized that if every person like me, who wasn’t violent, was removed from that crowd, the ones who were violent may have lost the nerve to do what they did,” Morgan-Lloyd wrote in a statement to the court, according to the Times. “For that I am sorry and take responsibility. It was never my intent to help empower people to act violently.”
A representative for Morgan-Lloyd did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Morgan-Lloyd is among the nearly 500 people charged in the riots, with two other defendants also pleading guilty on Wednesday at separate hearings, the Times reported. Her sentence is likely to serve as a precedent for hundreds of other people arrested with lower-level charges.
Among them are a Virginia couple who also pleaded guilty last month for charges of misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Joshua and Jessica Bustle have yet to be sentenced, but could face a maximum of six months in prison.
Read more about Morgan-Lloyd’s sentence in The New York Times.
