Background: FILE — Violent rioters loyal to President Donald Trump storm the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File). Insets, top to bottom: Kelly Fontaine poses for a picture taken by Bryan Dula inside the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021; Fontaine, left, and Dula (DOJ court filing).
An Illinois couple who admitted to breaching the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 says that they shouldn’t have to go to jail because then-President Donald Trump “invited” them to Washington, D.C., and that they — much like American soldiers fighting Nazis in WWII — felt like they were answering a call to service.
Kelly Fontaine, 54, and her then-boyfriend, now-husband Bryan Dula, 53, had traveled from Chicago to Washington, D.C., to attend Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally ahead of Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win. According to court filings, Fontaine had heard about the rally on Facebook. After the rally, in which Trump encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell ” to keep him in office, the couple admitted to going with the crowd to the Capitol building, eventually entering at around 2:55 p.m., less than one hour after rioters’ initial violent breach .
Once inside, they documented their illegal entry, with Dula using his cellphone to snap a picture of his future wife “as she posed among the other rioters also entering the building,” according to court filings. They then made their way down a hallway further into the building, walking through the first floor of the Capitol until they exited through a door on the building’s north side at around 3:06 p.m. — some 11 minutes after entering.
They were charged in February and pleaded guilty in June to two misdemeanors each: disorderly and disruptive conduct in a Capitol building or grounds, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Each is punishable by up to six months in prison. Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of 21 days behind bars for Fontaine and 14 days for Dula, along with three years of probation for each.
In a sentencing memo seeking prison time for both defendants, prosecutors noted that Fontaine and Dula were outside the Capitol as violence — including rioters smashing windows and police deploying chemical spray against the crowd — was underway, but kept walking toward the building anyway. The government also called Fontaine’s social media activity following Jan. 6 a “significant aggravating factor,” as she crafted posts “to publicly spin a narrative” that she — and the rioters generally — weren’t at fault.
“This was staged and anyone who doesn’t see it is those on the left who are being fed this true and utter insanity,” she wrote, according to prosecutors. “Did you see the cop on the stairwell-LEADING them up, but portrayed as being ‘stormed’. WHO can look at that video and NOT SEE?!! This was staged to silence our voice. Hypocrites-burn the cities, police departments and court houses, destroy businesses, take over private property — this is a constitutional crisis that needs to be handled NOW!”
The defendants, however, believe they shouldn’t spend any time behind bars, and instead requested sentences of probation only.
In a sentencing memo, Fontaine’s lawyer placed the blame directly at Trump’s feet, and compared his client — and other rioters — to U.S. soldiers who fought the Nazis.
“Viewed objectively, the simplest explanation of why Kelly and Bryan went to Washington that day is because Donald Trump invited them,” the memo says, specifically citing Trump’s Dec. 19, 2020 post to Twitter, now X, that his supporters should “be there” on Jan. 6 and that it “will be wild.”
“He and others working in concert with him did everything in their power to make people believe that the election had been stolen and that helping Donald Trump helped America,” the memo continued. “He strategically appealed to the same kinds of impulses in Kelly and Bryan that in previous generations inspired hundreds of thousands of Americans to enlist to fight and die in World War II.”
Dula’s lawyer minimized the defendants’ role, noting that they “were not part of the initial breaches of Capitol grounds, nor did they arrive early enough to witness the barricades being removed.”
Prosecutors noted, however, that the defendants passed that very scene in order to illegally enter the building.
“[T]hey walked past bike rack barricades which had been toppled over, and understood that they were in an area which was not open to the public,” says Dula’s statement of offense, which provides the factual basis for a guilty plea. The filing also noted that “an alarm was blaring loudly” when they entered the building.
Fontaine and Dula are scheduled to be sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, on Tuesday.
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