Before she decided to march into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 with the mob looking to hang former Vice President Mike Pence and disrupt certification of the 2020 presidential election results, Sue Ianni was a leader in the town of Natick, Mass. She was a member of the governing Town Meeting body.
Today, as an accused participant in the deadly insurrection, Ianni is out of office, has moved to the nearby town of Saugus, Mass., and is lamenting that a federal judge has refused to dismiss criminal charges against her for entering the Capitol along with the rest of the "Stop the Steal" mob, reports the MetroWest Daily News.
She is charged with three federal misdemeanors: entering and remaining in a restricted area; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted area; and disorderly conduct in the Capitol building. She pleaded not guilty and remains free on personal recognizance bail as her case moves through the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was photographed inside the Capitol building, raising a fist amongst the mob while wearing a blue jacket.
Her lawyers had argued before U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, that she was being prosecuted solely because of her conservative political beliefs.
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Ianni’s attorney, Henry Fasoldt, claimed that his client’s actions at the Capitol “mirrored that of hundreds of others who recently protested at the same location. Ms. Ianni was accused of committing federal crimes for her behavior. The other protestors were not. The difference between the two is political.” He asserted that after the Massachusetts woman entered the Capitol - which was off limits to visitors at the time - but then obeyed police orders to leave. “Minutes later, she left through a side door,” according to his motion. “She hit no one. She damaged nothing. She left when she was told to.”
Her attorney argued that Ianni's prosecution only came about because she was not espousing causes "generally associated with politically liberal beliefs," such as disability rights, climate change and opposing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Nichols was not swayed. As the MetroWest Daily News reports, while there are aspects of Ianni's protest that are similar to those cited by her attorney, "the similarities aren’t sufficient to prove selective prosecution.
“The particular combination of circumstances at issue here — including entering the Capitol while it was closed to the public; being among a very large demonstration; being among a crowd in which others were aggressive or violent (some shockingly so); and targeting a highly sensitive Congressional proceeding — are too different from any example or combination of examples,” he wrote.
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