DALLAS (AP) – A Dallas area real estate agent who is facing charges for allegedly being part of the pro-President Donald Trump crowd that invaded the U.S. Capitol last week said she is a “normal person” who listened to her president.
Jenna Ryan, 50, is accused of entering or staying “intentionally” in the restricted building or grounds without legal authority and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds on January 6, according to a criminal complaint filed by the FBI in a federal court in Washington.
Matt DeSarno, special agent in charge of the Dallas FBI office, confirmed that Ryan had surrendered and that his Carrollton apartment was searched on Friday. No personal phone number for Ryan was available, and court records did not list a lawyer for her until Friday.
Ryan shared photos and videos on social media, including a video in which she says, “Let’s go down and invade the Capitol,” in front of a bathroom mirror, according to the FBI’s criminal complaint.
The agent who signed the complaint also noted that Ryan broadcast a 21-minute live video of her on Facebook and of a group walking towards the Capitol.
“We’re going to (swearing) come in here,” Ryan said in the video as she approached the top of the stairs on the west side of the Capitol building. “Life or death, it doesn’t matter. Here we go.”
She then turned the camera to expose her face, the registered complaint, and said, “You know who to hire for your realtor, Jenna Ryan for your realtor. Almost halfway through, Ryan seems to have come to the front door, singing: “USA, USA” and “Here we are, in the name of Jesus”.
In an interview with KTVT-TV in Fort Worth, Ryan said he hoped Trump would forgive her.
“I just want people to know that I’m a normal person, that I listen to my president, who told me to go to the Capitol, who was showing off my patriotism while I was there and was just protesting and not trying to do something violent and I didn’t realize that I really there was violence, ”said Ryan.
Ryan is the third person in the FBI’s Dallas region in the north, northeast and near west of Texas to be named in criminal complaints, said DeSarno.
Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Larry Rendall Brock Jr. of Grand Prairie, another Dallas suburb, was released for confinement at home on Thursday after a prosecutor alleged that the former fighter pilot had handcuffs on the floor of the Senate because he planned to take hostages.
Troy Anthony Smocks, 58, of Dallas, was arrested on Friday after a criminal complaint was filed in Washington accusing him of “transmitting threats knowingly and intentionally in interstate commerce”.
Court documents claim that Smocks used social media to post threats on January 6 and 7 in connection with the disturbances. The threats included that he and others would return to the US Capitol on Tuesday with weapons and would form a mass so large that no army could match them. He threatened that they would “hunt these cowards like the traitors each of them are”, specifically threatening their Republican non-allies, Democrats and “technology executives”, according to a court statement.
Smocks could not be reached for comment, and no lawyer for him is listed in the court records.
Also on Friday, the first Houston area resident to be accused of participating in the riot was arrested. In a criminal complaint filed in Washington, the FBI accuses Joshua Lollar, 39, of Spring, of being the spearhead of a group that unsuccessfully tries to break through a line of Washington metropolitan police officers to the Capitol.
Lollar was accused of violent entry, unauthorized presence in a restricted area and impediment to law enforcement during civil unrest. He remains in federal custody until a detention hearing on Tuesday. No lawyer for him is listed in the court records.