KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Two Missouri women accused of breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6 — one who allegedly bragged on Facebook that they stole House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s beer — each pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to one misdemeanor.
Cara Hentschel and Mahailya Pryer, of Springfield, entered guilty pleas to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Their sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 19.
The women, both 34, face a maximum sentence of six months in jail, five years’ probation and a $5,000 fine. Both also are required to pay $500 restitution for damage to the Capitol building on Jan. 6, which prosecutors say totaled about $1.5 million.
The two appeared by video conference in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
“Are you entering this plea of guilty voluntarily and of your own free will because you are guilty and for no other reason?” U.S. District Judge Florence Y. Pan asked each woman during separate hearings.
“Yes,” Hentschel said.
“I am,” Pryer said.
Hentschel and Pryer were both charged Sept. 22 with four misdemeanors: entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a capitol building; and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building. The government agreed to drop three of the counts in exchange for their guilty pleas.
To date, 22 Missouri residents have been arrested in connection with the Capitol riot. Hentschel and Pryer are the 12th and 13th to plead guilty. Ten have been sentenced, and one — Proud Boys member Louis Colon of Blue Springs — awaits sentencing.
According to the charging documents, the FBI received an online tip on Feb. 5, 2021, saying that Hentschel had posted photos on her Facebook page that showed her inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. An FBI agent called Hentschel around March 8, and she declined to answer any questions but said she would cooperate if she was charged.
Information obtained through search warrants served on Verizon Wireless showed that the cellphones associated with both Hentschel and Pryer were in the Capitol area on Jan. 6, the documents said. The FBI also located an Instagram account associated with Hentschel’s name in which a photo posted on Jan. 6, 2021, featured a woman standing in a large crowd outside the Capitol and wearing a red, white and blue stocking cap with the number “45” on it, a reference to Donald Trump’s presidency. That woman was identified as Hentschel, the agent wrote in the court documents.
The FBI also found Hentschel’s Facebook page, which contained a photo of Hentschel and Pryer — also wearing a red, white and blue stocking cap — posted on Jan. 8, 2021, that said, “Patiently waiting for our wonderful President of the United States to speak. Jan 6, 2020.”
Hentschel’s Facebook friends commented on her post, according to the documents. One said, “Thank you for standing up!!!! Thank you for making history with me. [Three heart emojis] be proud patriots…” Hentschel replied: “An experience of a lifetime. We are very lucky we got to go.”
U.S. Capitol surveillance video footage from that day showed Hentschel and Pryer entering the building through the rotunda doors around 2:43 p.m., the documents said. Hentschel wore a dark coat with a light face covering and backpack slung over one shoulder, and Pryer wore a mask or neck gaiter and a dark outer garment. The video showed the women leaving the building through the same doors about 2:51 p.m.
On June 3, the FBI agent interviewed a relative of Pryer’s on the phone, the documents said. The relative had gone to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5 with Pryer, Hentschel and another person to attend the pro-Trump rally the next morning “but denied having done anything wrong on January 6 or having entered the U.S. Capitol and did not appreciate what people did on January 6,” according to the documents.
The agent then interviewed Pryer’s relative in person the next day, the documents said. While they talked, the relative called Pryer and told her she should cooperate with the FBI, but Pryer got mad and hung up. Around June 15, the agent again called the relative, who told the agent that Hentschel said “that the FBI could not prove she committed any crimes if she (Hentschel) refused to speak to them.”
On June 16, the agent tried to interview Pryer at her residence. Pryer declined to provide any information “because she did not want to incriminate herself, though she did not think that she had done anything wrong,” the documents said. Pryer also told the agent that she and Hentschel were no longer friends.
On June 28, the FBI interviewed a second person who traveled to Washington with the others. That person said the two were separated from Pryer and Hentschel that morning and didn’t see the women until they returned to the hotel later that day, the court records said. The person said the women did not talk about where they had been or what they’d done.
Around July 1, 2021, the FBI got a warrant to search Hentschel’s Facebook account and discovered a conversation between her and another person on Jan. 6, the documents said. The person asked if Hentschel had gotten inside the Capitol. Hentschel responded: “I was the first group in. Yes.” Then, “We storm peloskis office and took her beer. She drinks Corona.”
Prosecutors weren’t so sure about that part.
“The FBI has reviewed surveillance video footage from near Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office and did not observe Hentschel or Pryer entering Speaker Pelosi’s office,” the court records said.
The Facebook records also contained a conversation between Hentschel and another person that took place around Jan. 9, 2001, the documents said. The person asked if she’d made it into “the chambers.” Hentschel responded: “Not to the chambers, but I was inside.”
To which the person replied, “Badass.”
