Two Virginia friends plead guilty in Jan. 6 case

Two friends from Virginia have pleaded guilty to storming the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Cindy Fitchett, of Cobbs Creek, and Hudgins resident Douglas Sweet pleaded guilty on Tuesday to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. 

The charge is a misdemeanor and punishable by up to six months in jail.

Sweet and Fitchett were arrested alongside four others — Michael Currizo, Terry Brown, Bradely Rukstales and Thomas Gallgher — inside the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Sweet claimed he didn’t hear the order for rioters to clear out of the building, though the statement of facts for the case says the officers said to leave “in a loud and clear voice.”

Sweet told a local CBS News affiliate he did not want to stop Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote for now-President Biden but just wanted to “talk to” lawmakers.

“I was hoping to go in and talk to the Senate and the House and actually speak,” he said. “First of all, you’re not going to get in there unless you walk right in.”

Justice Department prosecutor Seth Meinero said Sweet and Fitchett traveled to Washington from Virginia together to attend former President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before joining the crowds at the Capitol.

“We are storming the Capitol. We have broken in. Patriots arise,” Fitchett says in a video.

There is no evidence the pair engaged in violent behavior during the riot, unlike many of the more than 500 who have been charged over it.

Sweet and Fitchett will be sentenced on Nov. 9 by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols.