WASHINGTON — A New York mother and son who helped another rioter steal a laptop from then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s office suite on Jan. 6 were sentenced Wednesday to home incarceration in what the judge described as a “significant break.”
Rafael Rondon, 25, pleaded guilty in December 2022 to a felony charge of obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting for his role in the Capitol riot. His mother, 56-year-old Maryann Mooney-Rondon, of Watertown, New York, was convicted in March of this year of the same obstruction charge as well as an additional count of aiding and abetting the theft of government property. Rafael Rondon also pleaded guilty in an unrelated case in New York to illegally possessing a sawed-off shotgun and was sentenced in July to 14 months in prison.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jia M. Cobb, who was nominated to the federal bench in 2021 by President Joe Biden, sentenced Mooney-Rondon to a year of home incarceration and Rondon to 18 months. Both will have to serve five years on supervised release, as well as pay restitution: $3,657 in Mooney-Rondon’s case and $2,000 for Rondon. Mooney-Rondon was also ordered to pay a $7,500 fine.
“I’m going to give you both a significant break,” Cobb said, adding that if she believed the Rondons had aided in the theft of the laptop with the intention of stealing government information they would have gone to prison instead.
According to court documents, the Rondons entered the Capitol through the Senate Wing door approximately 10 minutes after the first breach and made their way through the Crypt to a suite of offices used by the Speaker of the House of Representatives. There, prosecutors say, the mother and son assisted a still-unidentified third rioter in stealing a laptop.
The Rondons then moved to the Senate Gallery, where prosecutors said they each stole an escape hood with a filtering respiratory device intended for members of Congress and their staff. The Rondons left the building after approximately 30 minutes inside.
In a sentencing memo, federal prosecutors asked a judge to sentence Rondon to more than four years in prison – to be served consecutive to his 14-month sentence for illegally owning a sawed-off shotgun. According to prosecutors, Rondon admitted during an FBI interview that he planned on breaking into the Capitol on Jan. 6.
“I’m not taking my car into the city, [with] the Capitol building I’m about to break into… Duh… Anybody who brought their car into D.C., and you planned on doing that, you are a big f***ing idiot,” Rondon said, according to the DOJ’s sentencing memo.
Prosecutors sought 46 months, or a little under four years, in prison for Mooney-Rondon.
In their own memo, the Federal Public Defender’s Office argued the DOJ’s request was “excessive” and ignored his young age, mental health and previous trauma sustained in a fall when he was 19. They sought a probationary sentence to be served after he completed his 14 months in prison in New York.
Attorney Peter Cooper, who represented Mooney-Rondon, asked for a sentence of six months of home detention to be followed by a period of supervision and community service. In his memo, Cooper said Mooney-Rondon only came to D.C. to see former President Donald Trump and the details of how she came to be inside the Capitol remain “a blur” to her.
“The environment she found herself in was animated to say the least and she found herself being swept along, both emotionally in the mentality of the mob and physically in the manner in which she found herself in the Capitol building itself,” Cooper wrote. “As we have mentioned, that is not to say that she was forced in against her will but rather the frenzy left little time for self-reflection: the self-reflection she now employs.”
Both Rondons spoke briefly Wednesday. In response to a question from Cobb, Mooney-Rondon said she and her son were “scared” in the Speaker’s Office and so helped steal the laptop to avoid being hurt. Rondon, who has since become certified as a welder, asked Cobb to allow him to move forward with his life.
“I will never repeat something like this in my entire life,” he said.
Both Rondons will serve their periods of home incarceration in the Northern District of New York. Rondon’s will begin after he has served his 14-month sentence for the sawed-off shotgun.