Capitol rioter who said she’s ‘definitely’ not going to jail gets prison sentence

A Capitol rioter who said she was “definitely” not going to jail was sentenced to prison on Thursday.

Jenna Ryan of Frisco, Texas, was sentenced to two months in prison for her participation in the riots, The Washington Post reported. 

In August, Ryan pleaded guilty to one charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in the Capitol. She faced up to six months in jail and $500 in restitution at Thursday’s hearing.

Ryan is a real estate agent from Texas who flew a on private jet to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. She was arrested in January after authorities were able to identify her through social media posts from that day.

Ryan livestreamed herself walking in the Capitol and openly told reporters that she participated in the riots. After she returned home, she gave several interviews to the media about her role in the incident.  

In March, Ryan tweeted that she was “definitely” not going to jail in response to a comment someone left on a Twitter thread she had written about conservative news outlets avoiding her story.

“Definitely not going to jail,” Ryan tweeted at the time. “Sorry I have blonde hair white skin a great job a great future and I’m not going to jail. Sorry to rain on your hater parade. I did nothing wrong.”

Definitely not going to jail. Sorry I have blonde hair white skin a great job a great future and I’m not going to jail. Sorry to rain on your hater parade. I did nothing wrong

— Jenna Ryan (@dotjenna) March 26, 2021

Referencing the tweet, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said Thursday that he had sentenced Ryan as he did because of her apparent “lack of remorse” from that day, the Post reported.

“You’ve been very upfront that you feel no sense of shame or guilt,” Cooper said. “You suggested antifa was somehow involved. And perhaps most famously, you said that because you had blonde hair and white skin, you wouldn’t be going to jail.” 

Speaking to reporters after her sentencing, Ryan discussed why she had tweeted that she definitely wasn’t going to jail. “I didn’t think I was at the time,” she said. “They had had some discussions about it.”

“Other people that walked in for two minutes … but because I am a public person and I have a Twitter account, I’m being punished for that,” she said. “Watch what you tweet, because if you tweet, you can go to jail.”