A woman was arrested Monday in Houston for her alleged involvement in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when she wore a red "Make America Great Again" hat and took cell phone photos and videos documenting the 37 minutes she spent inside the government building, according to federal court documents.
Judy Fraize has been charged with the federal crimes of 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; and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a capitol building, court records show. She appeared before a magistrate judge Monday and was released from jail on a personal bond, with her next court appearance scheduled for Feb. 15.
Fraize is accused of being part of a crowd of supporters of then-President Donald Trump who disrupted a joint session of Congress and tried to prevent lawmakers from certifying the 2020 presidential election results in favor of Joe Biden. Five people died during the attack, which injured more than 100 police officers and resulted in millions of dollars in damages and losses, according to federal court records.
FBI agents identified Fraize as being inside the Capitol at the time because of records obtained from Google through a search warrant, which showed a mobile device with her phone number and Gmail address was present at the building that day, court records show. Agents subsequently interviewed Fraize at her home on July 6, 2021, when she allegedly said she had traveled from Dallas to Washington D.C. to attend a rally supporting Trump and entered the Capitol afterward.
"Fraize provided the interviewing agents with a video that she had taken inside of the U.S. Capitol and a picture of herself taken at the rally on January 6, 2021," court documents state.
A defense attorney for Fraize was not listed in her online case record as of Tuesday.
She is alleged to have been inside the Capitol for about 37 minutes, making her way through different areas of the building while occasionally stopping to sit on a bench or pose for photos with others who had gone inside. Fraize had brief encounters with police officers while inside the Capitol, according to court documents, which show that at one point she told an officer, "Blue Lives Matter," after being asked to leave the building. Later, she told an officer, "We gotta take our country back," court records allege.
More than 1,000 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 U.S. states for crimes related to the Capitol insurrection, with hundreds having been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Multiple people from the Houston area have been either charged or convicted of crimes related to the attack, including a Katy-area man who was indicted last month.