A Chicago woman was arrested this week on charges alleging she entered the U.S. Capitol with a relative shortly after rioters breached a Senate wing door and later tried to get back in the building before being turned away by police.
Trudy Castle, 57, who works as a property manager for a downtown real estate company, was arrested by federal agents Wednesday on a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Washington charging her with misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and unlawfully entering a restricted government building.
She appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Heather McShain on Wednesday. Details of the hearing were not listed on the court docket as of Thursday morning, and it was not known if Castle had hired a lawyer.
Castle was at least the 29th Illinoisan to have been charged so far in the Capitol breach, an ongoing investigation that has been described by prosecutors as the largest criminal probe in the country’s history.
Nationwide, about 800 people have been arrested as of this month in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on charges stemming from the Capitol breach, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
According to the complaint, Castle was seen on surveillance footage with a female relative entering the Capitol building through a Senate wing door shortly after it had been breached by the unruly mob.
Images included in the complaint allegedly showed Castle, dressed in a white jacket and red and blue “Trump” hat with a pom-pom, as she walked through the building to the elevator bank near the visitor’s center. In one of the images, chairs from an earlier clash with police could be seen strewn on the floor as Castle walked past.
Castle was also captured on surveillance going under a security door “just after rioters interfered” with it’s operation, according to the complaint. The images showed Castle walking through the breached door “using her arm in what appears to be an effort to protect her head or move the door up should the door deploy downward again,” the complaint stated.
Castle and her relative left the Capitol building after about 40 minutes, where Castle met up with her adult son, according to the complaint. About an hour later, the women appeared to try to get back in the building through the same breached Senate door but were unsuccessful, according to the complaint.
“At that time, law enforcement officers pushed away the rioters, and the women appear to depart,” the complaint stated.
Castle and her relative were identified by law enforcement after a tipster called the FBI field office in Dallas on Jan. 15, 2021, and reported that Castle’s relative had sent photos from her cell phone from inside the Capitol, according to the complaint.
Castle’s relative, who lives in northwest suburban Elmhurst, was named in the complaint, but it was not immediately clear if she was facing any criminal charges.
Castle was the latest person to be arrested locally in the ongoing investigation, which has included arrests in all 50 states.
Last week, Matthew Bokoski, of Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, was also charged with misdemeanor counts alleging he and his father entered the Capitol through breached Senate Parliamentarian door.
The father and son walked down a hallway as part of a crowd before the group was met with a line of 10 to 15 police officers, according to the complaint. Both men later turned around and left after being in the building for about five minutes.
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