The Justice Department will seek a 33-month prison sentence for a convicted Jan. 6 rioter who authorities said was among the first to break a fence line in the attack on the Capitol, CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane reports.
Yvonne St Cyr, a 55-year-old former Marine drill instructor from Boise, Idaho, was found guilty earlier this year of felony and misdemeanor in connection with the insurrection.
She is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 13.
POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?
St Cyr was found guilty on six counts including two counts of obstructing and interfering with law enforcement during a civil disorder (a felony) and misdemeanor charges of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, according to the Department of Justice.
According to court filings obtained by MacFarlane, the DOJ is seeking a sentence at the high end of guidelines that call for 27 to 33 months.
Prosecutors allege that St Cyr traveled from Idaho to Washington, D.C. to attend the former president’s rally and that she then went to the Capitol where she joined a crowd of rioters at the west plaza.
She was part of the group who broke through the police line in the west plaza, “forcing officers to retreat to the tunnel in the lower west terrace. St Cyr pushed forward, moving into the tunnel, was forcibly ejected, then returned to the tunnel, climbed up on the ledge, and called for fresh bodies to the front of the line,” according to the DOJ.
“She then yelled ‘Push!’ repeatedly, as other rioters surged into the police officers who stood in defense of the Capitol building. After this, St Cyr crawled through a broken window into senate office space. She claimed she did this because she was looking for a place to charge her phone. Instead, she recorded an obscenity-laced tirade about ‘communist America.’”