Ohioan says she acted to aid government
An Ohio woman arrested for her role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol said in a court filing over the weekend that she believed she was acting on a call from former President Donald Trump to support, not overthrow, the government.
Jessica Watkins, 38, of Woodstock in Champaign County also said in court documents that she traveled to Washington, D.C., to provide security for speakers at Trump’s protest rally that day, that she met with the Secret Service in advance, and that she had a VIP pass to the event.
“Ms. Watkins did not engage in any violence or force at the Capitol grounds or in the Capitol,” according to a motion seeking her release to home confinement filed Saturday in federal court for the District of Columbia by her federal public defender, A.J. Kramer. “She did not vandalize anything or engage in any destruction of property. She was polite to the police officers she encountered and did not yell at or harass them.”
Watkins has been in federal custody since her arrest on Jan. 17. U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta has scheduled a Tuesday afternoon hearing to consider whether to keep Watkins in custody or allow her release as her case proceeds.
Watkins and Donovan Crowl, 50, also of Champaign County, were among those arrested a little more than a week after the attack. Investigators say they and others are part of the Oath Keepers militia who donned military attire and forced their way into the Capitol.
Members of the Oath Keepers “believe that the federal government has been co-opted by a shadowy conspiracy that is trying to strip American citizens of their rights,” according to court records. Specifically it focuses recruitment on former military, law enforcement and first responders. The group has chapters around country. In Ohio, Watkins called herself the “commanding officer” of the Ohio State Regular Militia. In an affidavit the FBI filed in court against Watkins, agents said the militia members are dues-paying members of the Oath Keepers.
A half-dozen other alleged members of the group, including Warren County residents Bennie Parker, 70, and Sandra Parker, 60, also were arrested in the past week as co-defendants in the case against Watkins and Crowl, alleging the Oath Keepers planned in advance of Jan. 6, forcibly entered the U.S. Capitol with other rioters, and attempted to
whose insistence to see their children admitted to good schools led to a federal investigation and, in some of their cases, prison time.
But there is something universal tucked away inside that bizarre case, that core wish we have that doors of opportunity will swing wide for our children.
There is something else going on here.
I know my research won’t stop once he makes his choice. If anything, it will intensify. I’ll dig and dig until I know how to walk the campus in my head and can relate the school’s history more thoroughly than its president.
This is me grasping, to hold on a little longer.
His senior year is winding down, and yet I know so little about what high school has been like for him. I know his general circle of friends, and how he’s doing academically. But as I said, teens – at least the two I know who are here in the house – aren’t big on sharing with mom and dad.
That’s where we’re at. And if COVID-19 finally decides to loosen its grip, in six months he’ll be moving out, off to wherever it is he lands.
Knowing as much as I can about his destination is the next best thing to me being there. Since he won’t be here.
The waiting, it turns out, is not the hardest part. tdecker@dispatch.com @Theodore_decker