Kimberley Sylvester of Auburn is seen entering the U.S. Capitol through the Senate Wing door at 2:22 p.m. Jan. 6, 2021. To the right, people can be seen climbing through a broken window. On Monday, she was charged with knowingly entering the Capitol without authority to do so, with the intent of impeding or disrupting the orderly conduct of government business, and uttering loud, threatening or abusive language, or engaging in disruptive conduct in the Capitol. Submitted photo
AUBURN — Kimberley Sylvester of Auburn has been charged in connection with the riot at the Capitol building in 2021.
According to records filed in U.S. District Court on Monday, Sylvester was tracked down through her cellphone number and admitted to investigators that she was in the building Jan. 6. On Monday, she was charged with knowingly entering the Capitol without authority to do so, with the intent of impeding or disrupting the orderly conduct of government business.
She was also charged with uttering loud, threatening or abusive language, or engaging in disruptive conduct in the Capitol.
Both charges are misdemeanors.
Included in the court records are 16 photos of Sylvester taken in the building that day, including one image of her standing very close to a police officer, leaning toward him and holding a cellphone.
On the day of the riot, a joint session of Congress had been convened around 1 p.m. to certify the vote count of the Electoral College of the 2020 presidential election. A half-hour later, as a large crowd was gathering outside the Capitol, the House and Senate adjourned to separate chambers, with Vice President Mike Pence presiding in the Senate chamber.
According to court documents, members of the U.S. Capitol Police were attempting to maintain order outside the locked building as the crowd gathered, but around 2 p.m. people forced their way into the Capitol and 13 minutes later had breached the Senate Wing door.
According to court records, Sylvester entered through that door and was photographed walking through the North Crypt lobby just before 2:24 p.m., wearing a purple puffy coat and a red, white and blue “TRUMP” ski cap with a pom-pom. She is photographed again five minutes later moving with a large crowd through the lobby, and minutes later inside a nearly empty Statuary Hall connector, and then in a packed hallway at the main door to the U.S. Capitol at 2:43 p.m.
Kimberly Sylvester was seen inside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot. Submitted photo
She’s seen again walking through Statuary Hall four minutes later, where she remained for under 10 minutes. Just after 3 p.m., she could be seen walking near the interior door to the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, minutes later back at the crypt and then just inside the Senate Wing door at 3:19 p.m., leaving the building two minutes later.
According to the court, when the Senate Wing door was breached an emergency door was opened, setting off a high-pitched alarm at 2:16 p.m., and it was still sounding when Sylvester entered the building at 2:22 p.m.
According to records obtained through a search warrant served on Verizon, investigators determined that Sylvester’s cellphone had been used inside the Capitol on the day of the riot.
On Jan. 10, four days later, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent texted an image of a woman to Sylvester’s cell, and asked her to confirm or deny if she was the woman in the photo. Responding to that text, Sylvester acknowledged she was the woman in that photo.
In December 2021, nearly a year after the riot, FBI agents interviewed Sylvester and she admitted being inside the Capitol. She told agents that she entered a door that was already opened and no one was around it, and when showed a photo of herself walking through that door, she acknowledged it was her.
In a photo included with court documents, Sylvester can be seen going into the building while the emergency alarm was still blaring and “with rioters still climbing through the broken window immediately to her left” at the Senate Wing door.
Sylvester told agents she watched as a group of people pushed and shoved on a door, and “that was when she realized she should not be in the” building and found a police officer and told him ‘she wanted to get out.”
The officer helped her through a staircase that led out of the building, she said.
She denied being involved in any rioting, theft or destruction of property of any kind.
Sylvester, who is a registered nurse, told FBI agents that she told Capitol police officers inside the building that she was a nurse and could help as needed.
Kimberley Sylvester of Auburn is seen in this photo talking to a U.S. Capitol police officer inside the Capitol Rotunda at 3:09 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, holding her cellphone. Investigators were able to determine she was in the building that day through cellphone records obtained under a warrant. Submitted photo
A number of other Mainers have been convicted and one is facing a January court appearance for the roles they have been charged with playing in the riot, including Glen Mitchell Simon, formerly of Minot. Last year he was sentenced to eight months in prison. Simon also faces 12 months of supervised release, a $1,000 fine and is being asked to pay $500 in restitution. Simon, who was 30 at the time, was arrested in Georgia in May 2021. He pleaded guilty in the spring of 2022 to a charge of disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds. Three other charges against him were dismissed.
Simon, who attended Poland Regional High School before moving to Georgia and establishing a successful tree removal business, told the Sun Journal shortly after the insurrection that he headed for the nation’s capital because he wanted to “show support for the president” and counter Antifa demonstrators he thought would try to break up the pro-Trump rally.
Lebanon resident Kyle Fitzsimons was found guilty on all 11 criminal charges against him for his role in the Capitol riot. The charges included seven felonies: civil disorder, obstructing an official proceeding, four counts of assaulting or injuring officers who tried to repel the rioters and acts of physical violence on restricted grounds.
In July, he was sentenced to seven years and three months in federal prison, and has since apologized for his actions.
Nicolas Hendrix, a 35-year-old military veteran from Gorham, has pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor, was sentenced to 30 days behind bars. He had been charged with parading, demonstrating or picketing at the U.S. Capitol.
Todd Tilley of South Paris, was charged with four misdemeanors: 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 or grounds, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. All four charges are misdemeanors, punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine not to exceed $100,000 for the most serious offenses.
Joshua Colgan of Jefferson was charged with four misdemeanors, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. In April, he was sentenced to serve three years of probation and 28 of 90 days of home detention, and to pay $500 restitution.
David Ball of Wells has pleaded guilty to one count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol building. Three other charges were dropped as part of a plea deal. He faces up to six months in prison and a fine of no more than $5,000. His sentencing date has not been set.
Chris Maurer of Biddeford is facing nine federal charges, accused of hitting, screaming at and making obscene gestures toward Capitol police officers before he was pepper-sprayed and left the area. He pleaded not guilty in May and is scheduled to appear in court in January.
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