By Phil Helsel -
NBC News
A Texas real estate agent who said she would not go to jail after forcing into the U.S. Capitol during the Jan.6 attack on Congress was sentenced to
60 days in prison
Thursday, records show. judicial.
Jenna Ryan admitted to entering the Capitol after the attack by a crowd of supporters of former President Donald Trump, but
her lawyer argued that she did not incite violence or damage any property
, and that she was only in the building briefly.
Ryan pleaded guilty Aug. 19 to one count of marching, demonstrating, or picketing a Capitol building, a misdemeanor.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier on Wednesday, January 6, during the assault on the Capitol in Washington. John Minchillo / AP
Two months after his arrest, Ryan tweeted: “I will definitely not go to jail.
I'm sorry, I have blonde hair, white skin, a great job, a great future and I will not go to jail ”.
Then he added: "
I did nothing wrong
."
Prosecutors cited these posts during their arguments in defense of his serving time behind bars.
Ryan, in a letter to the court, said the tweet in question was in response to "thugs" who attacked her for her appearance on social media.
[Klete Keller, the Olympic medalist who stormed the Capitol]
"I responded by apologizing for my blonde hair, but that they were not going to put me in jail," he wrote.
"
I was not saying that I was above prison, I just felt that it would be unlikely,
" he clarified.
A request to his attorney for comment on what happened was not answered Thursday night, and an attempt to find a phone number for Ryan, who is free on bail, was not immediately successful.
Online court records do not appear to show when his prison sentence will begin.
District Judge Christopher Cooper reportedly told Ryan in sentencing that she
had become "one of the faces of January 6.
"
[Donald Trump and the Proud Boys are sued by Capitol cops]
The judge said the sentence should send a message "that we take it seriously, that it was an assault on our democracy ... and that it should never happen again," according to The Washington Post.
For a misdemeanor charge, like that of this agent, you can sentence up to six months in prison.
Prosecutors recommended a 60-day sentence.
Ryan has been honest in interviews about
not regretting what happened
.
Lady Gaga confessed that she wore a bulletproof dress during a ceremony in the Capitol
Nov. 4, 202100: 24
Prosecutors said he participated in and "encouraged" a violent attack on Congress to stop the counting of electoral votes, threatening the peaceful transfer of power.
[Congressmen ask the commission investigating the robbery of the Capitol to accuse Steve Bannon of criminal contempt]
Ryan claimed that he did not see any violence and was only briefly inside the building.
But prosecutors argued that
she went to the Capitol after bragging about seeing people "crawling up the walls"
on television and saying "let's go over there and get them out of their chairs."
Prosecutors responded that no reasonable person could interpret that as something that did not involve the use of force.