WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors say a Missouri woman who posed for a picture before entering a broken window at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has shown no remorse and should spend three weeks in prison despite taking a low-level plea deal.
Kimberly Rae Dragoo, 54, and her husband Steven Michael Dragoo, 66, pleaded guilty in August to one count each of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. They are scheduled to be sentenced April 19 at 1 p.m. by U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell.
The parading charge, which nearly every one of the 1,400 people charged in connection with the Capitol riot to date faces, is a class “B” or petty misdemeanor. It carries a potential jail term of up to six months but has typically resulted in sentences far below that. More than 150 defendants convicted of the parading charge have received probationary sentences – some with the addition of periods of home confinement or a community service requirement. At least 114 have received some prison time, ranging from seven days in jail to the maximum of six months. For those who’ve received jail time, the most common sentences range from 14-60 days in jail.
In August, a panel of D.C. Circuit Court judges ruled that defendants convicted of only a single class “B” misdemeanor – like the parading charge – can be sentenced to either probation or jail time, but not both. Since then, defense attorneys say, prosecutors have stopped offering plea deals to a single petty misdemeanor like the ones taken by the Dragoos.
The Circuit said prosecutors can seek still both supervised release and jail time, however, if they ask a judge to impose intermittent incarceration as a condition of probation. Intermittent confinement is typically served on consecutive weekends until the term is completed. Last month, another rioter, Adam Lejay Jackson, was sentenced to a year of weekend in jail for using a police riot shield to ram officers at the Capitol.
In a sentencing memo filed Monday, prosecutors said the Dragoos warranted both three years of supervised release and periods of intermittent confinement – 21 days for Kimberly and 14 days for Steven. Kimberly, prosecutors said, deserved an extra week behind bars because of her “complete lack of remorse for her actions and continued celebration of the events of January 6.”
In a video posted on Kimberly’s Facebook page, the couple can be heard narrating the events on the northwest side of the Capitol, including other members of the crowd going over police barricades and flash bang grenades being deployed. Despite that, prosecutors wrote, the Dragoos entered the Capitol through a broken window – but not before Kimberly stopped to pose for a picture. In an interview with the FBI, Kimberly reportedly said she though it was “funny.”
Kimberly also posed for other pictures inside the Capitol. One included in charging documents shows her smiling in front of a line of officers, some in riot gear. Another shows her posing with fellow Missourian Isaac Yoder, who came to the Capitol dressed in a Revolutionary War outfit. Yoder was convicted in a bench trial last year of four misdemeanor counts and sentenced to 12 months in prison.
After the riot, prosecutors say Kimberly continued to downplay the events of the day and refuse to accept responsibility for her actions – even after she pleaded guilty. According to prosecutors, as recently as October, two months after she pleaded guilty, Kimberly said in a public email to her local school board that she was “innocent until proven guilty.” Dragoo had been a candidate for an at-large seat on the St. Joseph County School Board but lost in an election earlier this month.
The Dragoos are being represented by attorney Bruce L. Castor, who served as solicitor general and acting attorney general in Pennsylvania prior to joining former President Donald Trump’s defense team during his second impeachment trial in January 2021. As of Tuesday afternoon, Castor had not filed his sentencing memo, although misdemeanor defendants in Jan. 6 cases routinely seek probationary sentences.