First guilty plea for Sacramento-area defendants in Jan. 6 insurrection at U.S. Capitol
One of four Sacramento-area residents charged in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol pleaded guilty Wednesday to a single misdemeanor count in connection with her actions during the Washington, D.C., insurrection.
Valerie Elaine Ehrke, an Arbuckle home designer who was facing four misdemeanor counts, pleaded guilty to a single count of parading, picketing or demonstrating in a government building.
Ehrke’s plea could net her up to six months in prison, a $5,000 fine and a year of supervised release, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Birney said during the hearing that the government would not oppose the judge sentencing her to probation, a $500 fine and 40 hours of community service.
Senior U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman accepted the plea during a Zoom hearing with Ehrke and Sacramento defense attorney Robert Holley and set sentencing for Sept. 9.
Ehrke, who was allowed to remain out of custody after being charged, is the first of the four Sacramento-area residents charged in connection with the Capitol Riot to resolve her case.
GOP activist Jorge Riley of Sacramento and Tommy Frederick Allan of Rocklin are out of custody pending resolution of their cases.
Auburn resident Sean Michael McHugh was ordered last week to remain in custody and be transferred to Washington, D.C., after a judge found he was a danger to the community and a flight risk. Online records show McHugh remained in custody Wednesday at the Sacramento County Main Jail.
In the Ehrke case, court records say the FBI received an anonymous tip about the Colusa County woman on Jan. 7 that she “had posted a video to Facebook of her inside the U.S. Capitol building...”
“A check of the public Facebook page belonging to Ehrke with the display name ‘Valerie Elaine Ehrke’ showed a video posted on January 6, 2021, at 2:09 p.m.,” an affidavit from FBI special Agent Michael B. Miller says. “The video showed a group of people entering the U.S. Capitol building with a caption reading, ‘We made it inside, right before they shoved us all out. I took off when I felt pepper spray in my throat! Lol.’
“The video is taken from the first-person perspective. Thus, it shows that whoever took the video also entered the U.S. Capitol with the rest of the group.”
The affidavit also said that Ehrke’s Facebook profile page “shows a flaming ‘Q’ and a map commonly associated with QAnon, a far-right conspiracy group.”
Ehrke flew out of Sacramento International Airport to Reagan National Airport on Jan. 5, and returned to Sacramento on Jan. 9, court records say, adding that FBI agents interviewed her Jan. 13 and that Ehrke said she and a friend went to listen to then-President Donald Trump, who was speaking at a rally to promote his false claims that President Joe Biden had stolen the November election.
“She heard President Trump tell the crowd to go to the U.S. Capitol, and he would go with them,” the FBI affidavit says. “Ehrke instead went back to her hotel room, turned on the television, and saw a news story about how people were going into the U.S. Capitol building.
“Ehrke decided she wanted to be part of the crowd, and she walked to the U.S. Capitol. Ehrke stated that when she arrived at the U.S. Capitol building, she joined a group entering through a set of double doors and proceeded about fifteen (15) feet into the building.
“The crowd then started to push backward going out the doors through which they had entered. An unknown man grabbed her and pushed her outside.”
This story was originally published June 30, 2021 at 10:50 AM with the headline "First guilty plea for Sacramento-area defendants in Jan. 6 insurrection at U.S. Capitol."