Texan who promoted realty business in US Capitol riot pleads guilty

WASHINGTON (CN) — Three individuals who breached U.S. Capitol security in the Jan. 6 riot — one of them a Texas real estate broker who has publicly waffled between defending her choice to enter the Capitol and regretting it — pleaded guilty to a low-level misdemeanor charge of parading Thursday.

Jenna Ryan, 51, chartered a private plane from Dallas to Washington and meticulously documented her journey — including with a 21-minute live Facebook video where she didn't let the budding insurrection slow down her self-promotion. 

“We are going to fucking go in here. Life or death, it doesn’t matter. Here we go,” Ryan told viewers as she was walked up the steps at the Capitol, according to an FBI affidavit.  “Y’all know who to hire for your Realtor. Jenna Ryan for your Realtor.”

On Twitter the following day, Ryan said that storming the Capitol was one of the best days of her life and she later defended her decision in an interview with Fox4, saying that she “was doing her duty to her president.”

Shortly after, however, Ryan changed her tune. 

In February, Ryan told The Washington Post in that she felt betrayed and abandoned by former President Donald Trump and his other supporters. 

“I bought into a lie, and the lie is the lie, and it’s embarrassing. I regret everything,” she told The Post. “Not one patriot is standing up for me. I’m a complete villain. I was down there based on what my president said. ‘Stop the steal.’ Now I see that it was all over nothing. He was just having us down there for an ego boost. I was there for him.”

If her regret was genuine, it too proved short-lived. When told by a Twitter user in March that she was going to jail, Ryan denied blame. 

“Definitely not going to jail. Sorry I have blonde hair white skin a great job a great future and I’m not going to jail,” Ryan tweeted. “Sorry to rain on your hater parade. I did nothing wrong.”

Ryan has accepted a guilty plea for parading, demonstrating or picketing in the Capitol. She could face up to six months in jail, though prosecutors are not recommending prison time. 

Eric Torrens, 28, of Tennessee, also copped to the same charge on Thursday — a plea deal that the Justice Department has been handing out to many nonviolent protesters at the Capitol riot. 

A video shows Torrens inside the Capitol marching and chanting, “Stop the steal!”

A well-known far-right activist in Huntington Beach accepted a plea deal on Thursday as well. In an Epoch Times feature that described him as 49 years old, Mark Simon was quoted as saying that the riot at the Capitol, which led to five deaths and scores of injuries, featured only very minor destruction.

There were “a couple of patriots on top of some type of government vehicle," said Simon, who was tagged in a Facebook video at the Capitol saying, “In the Capitol baby, yeah,” and “2021 Donald Trump!”

During his Thursday plea hearing, Simon told U.S. District Judge Amy B. Jackson that he was six months sober, and she congratulated him. 

“I made a mistake,” Simon told Jackson, claiming that he left the Capitol almost immediately after he went in. 

Ryan is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 4; Torrens is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 29; and Simon is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 7.

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