A mother and daughter from Canterbury, Connecticut, have pleaded guilty in federal court to charges related to entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, telling a judge that they both climbed a bike rack to get into the building.
Carla Krzywicki and her mother, Jean Lavin, faced four charges related to breaching the U.S. Capitol, but they were allowed on Tuesday to plead guilty to just one: parading or demonstrating on U.S. Capitol grounds.
They both traveled to Washington, D.C., last year from Norwich on a bus. Lavin said they went to hear then-President Donald Trump speak at a rally.
Lavin testified that she walked into the building with a sign that read “Trump Won” on one side and “Don’t allow 7 states of cheaters to hijack our election!” on the other.
Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court in Washington pointed out the sign and asked Lavin if she and her daughter entered the Capitol to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Lavin said she made the sign for Trump’s speech and had nowhere to put it after they followed a crowd to the U.S. Capitol.
“We went along with the crowd but didn’t have the mob mentality like others there,” Lavin said Tuesday.
Investigators arrested Krzywicki and Lavin last September after spotting them on surveillance video. Krzywicki also admitted to posting a photo to Facebook that she took from inside the building, something that led investigators to her and her mother.
“We do not go burning down your city and stealing from your business,” read Krzywicki’s Facebook post, which has since been taken down. “We come for the government officials that are ruining our country. We go straight to the source. Change needs to happen.”
Krzywicki and Lavin face a maximum of six months in prison, five years’ probation and a $5,000 fine. As part of the agreement, they’ll both pay $500 for their part of more than $1 million in damages inflicted on the Capitol that day.
The mother and daughter will be sentenced April 22.
In one of her longer answers at the hearing on Tuesday, Krzywicki addressed what she was trying to change by entering the U.S. Capitol.
“Ironically what happened that day,” Krzywicki said of the violent mob, “things like that shouldn’t be allowed.”
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