A doctor from Ashland, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty Tuesday to attacking a police officer during the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot, federal prosecutors said.
Dr. Jacquelyn Starer, 70, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of civil disorder and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for D.C. She also pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors: entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.
Prosecutors said Starer attended a "Stop the Steal" rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and was among a group of people who forced their way into the U.S. Capitol through the East Rotunda Doors.
Around 3 p.m., Starer made her way to the front of the crowd to confront a line of Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Capitol police officers who had formed a line to prevent the group from reaching the west entrance of the Capitol Rotunda, prosecutors say.
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According to court documents, bodycam footage from a Washington, D.C., Metropolitan police officer shows Starer hitting an officer in the Capitol Rotunda. The officer who was struck told investigators that she remembered the incident and recognized the woman who hit her in the bodycam footage.
Starer also shouted expletives at the officers, according to the prosecution.
Starer was a practicing doctor from Ashland who worked at Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital at the time of her arrest in December 2022. Following that arrest, a representative for Brigham and Women's Hospital said she was "no longer active at our organization. She also served as the president of the Massachusetts Society of Addiction Medicine and had a clean disciplinary record, according to the state's Board of Registration in Medicine.
She is scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 5, 2024.
Starer is among 1,385 people who have been charged for crimes tied to the riot at the U.S. Capitol, including nearly 500 charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
The investigation is ongoing.
