A brother and sister from Tucson were sentenced Wednesday to brief prison time for felony obstruction during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Felicia Konold, 29, was sentenced to 45 days in prison and 24 months of supervised release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Cory Konold, 28, was sentenced to 30 days in prison and 24 months of supervised release.
Cory Konold, shown here near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Both pleaded guilty in November to the charge of obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder and aiding and abetting, for which each could have been sentenced to up to five years in prison.
Before taking that plea agreement, the Konolds were originally charged in the case with conspiracy, civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
They were sentenced Jan. 24 by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy J. Kelly in Washington, D.C.
Federal prosecutors had asked that Kelly send Felicia Konold to prison for six months and Cory to prison for three months.
“The higher recommendation for Felicia Konold reflects her aggravated conduct, including outfitting herself for violence in advance of the riot and celebrating her leading role afterward,” prosecutors told the judge in their sentencing memo.
“Felicia Konold’s own diary entries reflect a degree of preparation for the riot and that her ‘pre-planning notes’ show that she ‘fully anticipated that she would be engaged in violence,’ “ they wrote.
Her list of items to bring to the Capitol included “bear spray, gauze, bandages, pain medications, Vaseline, and ‘quick clot,’ an apparent reference to a stop-bleeding aid,” according to prosecutors.
Both Konolds were on the front lines along with members of the Proud Boys from Kansas City, whom they marched with, the government said.
The siblings used “the force of their bodies to try to push back the barriers and officers” outside the Capitol, trying “to overpower the police in a shoving match,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. After illegally entering the building, they took part in chasing police out of the Capitol Crypt, the prosecutors added. They said Felicia Konold incited other rioters and encouraged them to fight physically with police.
In Felicia Konold’s diary, prosecutors told the judge, “she acknowledged how much resistance from law enforcement she and her co-defendants had overcome — they ‘persisted through rubber bullets, chemical sprays, baton beating, physical resistance and doors’ — and noted what she believed to be the historical significance of their achievement — they ‘occupied the Capitol building in Washington [for the first time] since the British hundreds of years ago.’ ”
The journal celebrated that this caused “the politicians to run SO FAST from their seats.”
Prosecutors wrote, “The January 6 riot was a violent attack that threatened the lives of legislators and their staff, interrupted of the certification of the 2020 Electoral College vote count, did irrevocable harm to our nation’s tradition of the peaceful transfer of power, caused more than $2.9 million in losses, and injured more than one hundred police officers.”
In another of Felicia Konold’s diary passages, also included in the court records, she wrote that she had found her “life purpose,” “to make sure good TRUMPS Evil.”
After Jan. 6, Felicia Konold took to social media and bragged about her role in the riot, prosecutors said.
“I never could have imagined having that much of an influence on the events that unfolded today,” she posted, according to prosecutors. “Dude, people were willing to follow.”
“Cory’s actions at the Capitol, as compared to Felicia’s, were less egregious and appear more akin to those of someone tagging along with his sister, the driving force of the pair,” prosecutors wrote.
But they said “he joined her in stampeding over the fences, shoving against the barricades, and pursuing fleeing officers through the building.”
They also said Cory Konold took a police riot helmet that he “triumphantly brandished” as a “trophy” at the Capitol and that he took it home after the melee.
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