WASHINGTON (CN) — A woman who stormed the U.S. Capitol after urging people back in December to rise up and prepare for a civil war got off with home detention and a warning Tuesday, far less than the 30 days of incarceration that prosecutors recommended.
“She came dressed in a tutu, she did not come dressed to fight in a war,” U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols explained at a hearing Tuesday for Rasha Abual-Ragheb.
Calling her conduct mild in comparison to fellow rioters, Nichols emphasized that Abual-Ragheb stayed inside the Capitol for only two minutes.
Weeks before Jan. 6, Abual-Rabheb had drawn FBI scrutiny when she posted on Facebook: “Civil War is coming and I will be happy to be a part of it," and “I’m a women with 3 kids! And I made it to every Rally!! No way NJ count all of the votes … I won’t stop! They have to kill me!!! To remove me!”
Abual-Rabheb proclaimed in other posts that she was going to bring a knife and pepper spray to the Capitol and would attack Black Lives Matter protesters if they said anything.
“She admits that some of the things that she wrote were just plain stupid,” Abual-Rabheb’s defense attorney Elita Amato told Nichols.
As a child, Abual-Rabheb fled to Jordan to escape the civil war in Lebanon. She told Nichols that because English is her third language, she had a hard time communicating her frustration in her belief that her vote in last year's U.S. presidential election was never counted.
“I went to ask them what happened to my vote that was never counted. I didn’t go to cause any harm or change the election results,” Abual-Rabheb told Nichols. “I will never agree with anyone who will do any acts of violence.”
In a tearful plea to the judge, Abual-Rabheb asked Nichols to keep her and her children together, especially because she is now homeschooling them after her children were ostracized and bullied at school because of her actions.
“Because she does not have a full command of the English language, I don’t think it’s fair to assume the very worst intentions,” Nichols said. “While she may have predicted a civil war, I don’t think she was planning on being an active participant in a civil war.”
Though FBI agents noted in charging papers that Abual-Rabheb participated in Facebook and Telegram group chats involving the New Jersey chapter of the American Patriot Three Percent, Amato said in an email to Courthouse News that her client isn’t in contact with — or connected to — any Three Percenters.
Earlier on Tuesday, another rioter, Justin McAullife pleaded guilty to unlawful picketing, parading or demonstrating in a Capitol building.
McAullife, from Long Island, was seen with a Trump flag in the office of a Congress member.
“Yeah, I was in one of the offices,” McAuliffe wrote in a Facebook exchange. “Some people were smoking a joint in the room, lol. Cops came in and weee [sic] like. Okay guys really? They didn’t even ask us to leave right away. They let us sit down and hang out and relax.”
McAuliffe’s friend contacted the FBI to turn him in.
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