Colorado 'praying grandma' awaits verdict after prosecution for briefly entering Capitol on J6

Rebecca Lavrenz, dubbed the "praying grandmother," attended the Stop the Steal rally on January 6, 2021, prayed with a group of people outside the Capitol Building, and went into the Capitol Building, where she stayed for just 10 minutes. She has been on trial this week in Washington, DC, facing prosecution at the hands of Biden's Department of Justice.

By her own admission, she spent about 10 minutes inside the Capitol Building on J6, over an hour praying outside, and for that, she has been charged with four misdemeanor counts. Surveillance footage shows her peacefully walking around inside the Capitol Building and even speaking to a Capitol Police Officer, who leaned forward slightly to hear her.

She has since launched a fundraiser to help with her legal fees. 

 

"I didn’t get into this for myself," she said, "I was there to stand up for my country. I asked God if I did something wrong, if I needed to repent, and God said, 'No, you went there to make my presence known and to pray.' My biggest prayer is that God gets the final word this week."

Lavrenz, who was making a birthday cake for her son when the FBI came knocking on her door over a year after J6, was charged with 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.

Lavrenz is mother to four adult children, grandmother to seven grandchildren, and great-grandmother to one. She said she had prayed about whether or not she should attend the Stop the Steal rally at the Elipse in DC on that day.

"It didn’t take me long to figure out God was saying to go there," she said. "I do what I can in prayer, and I put action to my faith." She drove from Colorado to DC.

"It was a patriotic, joyful time to be around so many people who love their country," she said. "I felt a strong presence of the spirit of God fall over me, and I started crying."

"My mission in life is to know God and make his ways known and restore the country back to its godly foundation," Lavrenz said. "Without God, there’s no justice."

The statement of facts presented by the Department of Justice, per a US Army Counterintelligence Special Agent and FBI Task Force Officer assigned to the FBI’s Colorado Springs Resident Agency National Security Squad 2, which is part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, stated that "multiple tipsters" told the FBI that Lavrenz was at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Cell phone data corroborated that. 

Lavrenz, the statement read, "observed people getting into physical confrontations with police, pushing on the barriers as the police pushed back." Lavrenz followed a crowd through the main door of the Capitol on the East side of the building. She also observed that officers did not chase those who pushed past the barrier into the building. 

She "spent approximately two minutes inside the US Capitol and described her path as roaming from the East center entrance to the Rotunda and back, exiting through the same door she entered." She provided agents with photos of herself at the Capitol.

FBI agents confirmed Lavrenz's account of her activities that day, namely that she entered the building and left 10 minutes later. However, in the statement of facts from the unnamed agent, the FBI states that "there is probable cause to believe that Lavrenz violated" laws that "make it a crime to (1) knowingly enter or remain in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do and (2) knowingly and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the order conduct of Government business or official functions; or attempts to do so."

The agent also goes on to say that "there is also probable cause to believe that Lavrenz violated" additional laws "which make it a crime to willfully and knowingly utter loud, threatening or abusive language, or engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the Grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either House of Congress, or the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either House of Congress, or the orderly conduct in that building of a hearing before, or any deliberations of, a committee of Congress or either House of Congress; and parade, demonstrate, or picket in any of the U.S. Capitol Buildings."

Over 1,300 people have been charged by Biden's Department of Justice under Attorney General Merrick Garland. Agents are still in the process of finding and arresting people who were present inside the building as well as those who simply tread on the grounds outside. President Joe Biden has used the events of January 6, 2021 to claim that "white supremacy" is the greatest threat facing the nation.