Dragoos get jail time in U.S. Capitol case
Apr. 19—Kim and Steven Dragoo have been sentenced to serve 14 days each in jail for a misdemeanor offense on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.
According to court filings, Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia passed a sentence that will require the Dragoos to self-surrender to a Missouri jail facility, under the oversight of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. They will be permitted to serve one week in jail each, then go free for a time, before serving another week later on. They will not be permitted to leave the jail during each week of serving their sentence. Their service will begin at a time to be determined.
"I get the strong impression you both downplayed your conduct on Jan. 6," Howell told the Dragoos as she passed sentence, according to CBS News. "You crawled through a broken window. No one goes into a government building through a broken window ... You guys were having a good time. You were having fun, while people were locking themselves behind doors and hiding beneath desks."
The Dragoos are subject to three years of federal probation that will cause them to be re-confined if they again violate the law during that time, or if they fail to serve their jail terms. They must each pay a $10 fee to the court, plus a $5,000 fine each. The Dragoos are collectively responsible for a $500 restitution payment owed to the Architect of the U.S. Capitol.
At the request of News-Press NOW, CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane covered the sentencing hearing on Friday afternoon in Washington. MacFarlane said both defendants initially declined to say anything to the judge, but then Kim Dragoo changed her mind.
"You could tell from the body language that Kimberly Dragoo seemed to be less and less interested in staying quiet," MacFarlane said. "She was shaking her head a few times as the judge spoke, she was looking at her husband during certain remarks by the judge. And then, she started piping up ...
"And so, there was like a five-minute conversation between Kimberly Dragoo and her defense lawyer, and during those five minutes, the judge sentenced Steven Dragoo. And then Kimberly came back up, asked for permission to speak, and the judge let her."
In the discourse that followed, MacFarlane said, Kim Dragoo said she did not mean to cause any harm.
"I love my country, I'm a very patriotic person," Kim Dragoo told the judge. "I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time ... I was really nosy ... that's all."
Kim Dragoo then said that she has suffered greatly since she and her husband came to Washington just over three years ago in support of then-President Donald Trump's effort to stay in office following the 2020 elections won by President Joe Biden. Kim Dragoo is a local conservative activist, who recently ran for the St. Joseph Board of Education, though she was not elected.
"People come at me so bad," she said. "I have ... people who hate my guts. I'm tired of it."
MacFarlane said the judge heard Kim Dragoo's comments and then handed down the 14-day sentence.
"The judge sat, listened to most of it, interjected with a question or two," MacFarlane said. "But really, the point the judge was trying to make is, 'You had to have known what you did was unlawful, what you did was wrong, and you seem to be missing that.'"
The Dragoos' lawyer, Bruce L. Castor Jr., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Marcus Clem can be reached at marcus.clem@newspressnow.com. Follow him on Twitter: @NPNowClem
