Jessica Reyher@jessica_reyher
Jan 6
Let me start by saying my husband, Arthur, and I were never big Trump supporters. We in fact we voted for Jo Jorgensen in the 2020 election. My husband has always been very liberty minded and disenchanted with the state of politics and policing in this country. He has believed for decades the system is rigged. After watching the blatant rigging of the 2020 election, we felt compelled to go to DC to show our support for a REAL investigation into our rigged elections.
January 5, 2021
We went to Washington, D.C., for what we believed would be a weekend of protests and sightseeing as I had never been to D.C. before. We walked around the city, taking in the monuments and atmosphere on Jan 5th. We had no idea what the next day would bring.
January 6, 2021
We got to the Ellipse late and only caught the end of President Trump’s speech. The crowd was massive, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. We stood in front of the Washington Monument. When he finished speaking we stood there and waited to see if we could watch Trumps entourage make their way to the Capitol, as Trump said he would. After a short while we realized it was unlikely he was going to actually walk with the crowd, so we made our way towards the Capitol. We stopped about half way there and observed from a catwalk the enormity of the crowd as it passed. After a few minutes we rejoined the crowd and made our way to the Capitol. Upon arrival there was no fencing stopping us from walking onto the Capitol ground. The crowd had encircled the entire building. As we were coming up to the back of the building, the crowd was peacefully chanting, waiving flags and praying.
The police had mad a makeshift barrier with bicycle racks. Almost immediately, after our arrival, the police began to attack the crowd via tear gas, pepper balls, flash bangs, and rubber bullets. The crowd then became highly agitated and many started pushing through the make shift barrier. My husband immediately recognized what this was and started yelling at people that this was a setup, remain peaceful, think about the cameras. He made his way to an area between the officers and the people that were throwing things at the officers. He pleaded with the crowd to stop, no violence. The police then retreated inside the building and the crowd began making its way up the inauguration stage. Once on the inauguration stage, the crowd became peaceful again, chanting, praying, letting their voices be heard. We entered the tunnel and the doors were still intact. So we just chanted and stood around. Eventually we left the tunnel to observe the MASSIVE crowd that was forming around the Capitol. When we saw more activity around the tunnel we made our way back to see what was going on.
Once we were back at the tunnel someone was trying to break the window on the right side of the tunnel entrance. The crowd immediately chanted for them to stop, which they did. We moved into the tunnel area to see what was happening, and that’s when we saw the doors had been broken. As tensions rose, people pushed against the police line and use violence. My husband again tried to get to the front of the crowd to intervene. He raised his hands and told people “do not hit them, keep your hands up, and push”. He was repeatedly batoned, tear-gassed, and pepper-sprayed, but NEVER attempted to strike police officers. Instead he used his own body to shield them. We took weapons from violent protesters and gave them to the officers. Yet law enforcement unleashed repeated attacks on us. When an officer screamed because he was pinned in the door, we chanted to stop pushing and pushed against the crowd, so the man could be freed. We spent long periods standing in and around the tunnel, repeatedly trying to calm the crowd. At one point a man with a bullhorn seceded at calming the crowd and everyone sat down and it became peaceful once again.
It was peaceful until police came to the ledge and once again started using munitions on the crowd. This caused the crowd to become enraged once more. I believe it was after this that Officer Fanone was pulled from the building. My husband moved to secure Fanones’ safety being trampled in the chaos while trying to reach him. He was able to regain his footing and made his way to Fanone. He used himself as a human shield to protect Fanone from those that were using violence against him, with the help of 4 or 5 other protestors. My husband intervened to protect him, and later in an interview, he received a “fuck you” from Fanone.
Once Fanone was safely back with the police line we had to find each other once more as I was at the bottom of the stairs to the inauguration tunnel. Once we were able to get back to each other, we stood around in shock of what had just happened. As the violence grew we realized that nothing we could do would keep the peace, so we decided to leave the grounds. As we walked away, we saw people coming out of the side doors cheering “we got in.” We kept walking and rinsing our faces with water.
Once we were back at the AirBnB we took an extended shower which resulted in the water feeling like lava from the chemical burns. We bagged our clothes up and threw them away. Our lungs burned, our eyes were red, irritated, and burned for several days. We watched from our AirBnB that the windows were broken on the left side of the tunnel, people were removing items from the Capitol through the broken window, and we watched the rest of the events unfold on television. We had gone to exercise our First Amendment rights. We left traumatized, bruised, and gassed.
January 20, 2021
Roughly a week or two after January 6, the FBI came to our home. They were only interested in if we had made it inside the building, which we did not, though we tried like hell. He told them that it they wanted to ask anymore questions, we would need our lawyer or if at any time they decided to bring charges against us, to please call as we have kids and dogs, and we would turn ourselves in. This led us to many sleepless nights worrying if tonight would be the night they’d kick in our door and raid us. We watched in horror as story after story that this occurred.
March 2023
On this devastating Monday (March 12, 2023), we both received a phone call and learned the Department of Justice was bringing charges against us. We were instructed to turn ourselves in on Wednesday. We surrendered to the FBI on March 15, 2023. We were handcuffed, fingerprinted, I was stripped for photographs of my tattoos, and shackled like dangerous criminals. We spent the entire day in a cold processing holding cell and were forced to shuffle in a three point restraint, as they paraded us through the Indianapolis Federal courthouses. We were more fortunate than others, as the judged released on pretrial probation. From that day forward, our lives became a nightmare of government control and public hatred:
• No travel without permission
• A probation officer monitoring us
• Random urine tests
• Surrendering of our weapons
• Ban from Washington, D.C.
We were immediately swarmed with endless death threats via social media. Our names and faces plastered all over local news stations, spreading false information about us. Our businesses were attacked online. Our reviews were flooded with negativity and death threats. My husband was let go from the real estate brokerage, as they were mercilessly under attack. We lost major contracts, for his general contracting company, which was our family’s only source of income.
For the next year we lived in agonizing uncertainty, attending Zoom court hearings while our lawyers “fought” the prosecution. We were told by our counsel repeatedly how unprecedented our prosecution was and that they had never seen cases being handled so heavy handed in their entire time being a defense attorney. We were pressured into a plea of guilty, as our lawyers were warning us that other J6 defendants were rarely given fair trials and sentenced to their max. We faced up to 10 years in prison for all of our charges. As parents of 4, the terror of leaving our children for a decade was unbearable. We were first-time offenders with no criminal history and harmed no one or broke nothing. Yet, the state was coming at us with the full weight of the US government.
February 2024
We returned to D.C. with 30 friends and family members for sentencing. Loved ones pleaded for leniency, explaining that we homeschooled our three minor children and that I was the primary caregiver for my terminally ill mother, who lived with us. My husband stood before the judge and begged to take my sentence so I could return home to our kids and ailing mother. The judge refused. He gave me 3 months and my husband 8 months. We were not permitted to serve our sentences at separate times. Our lawyers were appalled by this as it was highly unorthodox especially considering the length of our sentences.
The judge blamed us for the suicides of officers who died after January 6 and said we should be ashamed of ourselves and for the injuries of every officer, despite the fact that there was video evidence of using ourselves to protect the police from violence. When he learned we hadn’t even voted for Trump (we voted for Jo Jorgensen), he seemed shocked and asked why we were even there? It didn’t matter to himS Our lives were shattered anyway.
April 30, 2024
My husband surrendered MCC Chicago Federal Prison to began his sentence. Upon his surrender they placed him in a section mostly filled with Chicago gang members.
June 3, 2024
I surrendered and was sent to FCI Hazelton in West Virginia a high-security facility, after being told I would be serving my time at a satellite camp. Instead I was locked up with murderers, child predators, and rapists. I was housed with biological males on the compound, one being in my unit. I received no time cuts and served every single day of my 90-day sentence.
The separation from our children and each other was excruciating. Our family had never been separated like that before.
While in prison:
• May 20, 2024 my husband spent his 40th birthday in prison.
• June 11, 2024 We received the phone call every parent dreads, our son had been in a severe motorcycle accident. Neither of his parents could be there with him, the time in his 19 years of life.
• June 25, 2024 we missed our daughter’s 14th birthday, first one ever in her life.
• July 18, 2024 we missed our daughter’s 17th birthday, first one ever in her life.
• July 28, 2024 our oldest daughter’s eating disorder spiraled badly after our imprisonment; she was hospitalized Again, neither parent was there for her, for the first time in her life. Her phone was taken from her while in the hospital and couldn’t even talk to us when we called.
• August 14, 2024 we spent our 20th wedding anniversary separated, couldn’t talk to each other, in prison.
• August 18, 2024 was my mother’s last birthday and I was in prison.
• September 9, 2024 my husband was in prison for my 40th birthday.
• August 29, 2024
I was released after serving my full sentence, on 3 years probation.
• October 18, 2024 was our youngest 13th birthday. My husband was in a halfway house, and did receive 2 hours to spend with her and his family, on an ankle monitor.
• October 29, 2024
My husband was finally released, on 3 years probation and 200 hours of community service. Which, while in the halfway house he volunteered to work in the kitchen, without pay, for up to 8 hours a day, they wouldn’t accept that as his community service.
• June 2024 - to the end of Aug 2024 our two youngest children were uprooted from their home, their animals, their older siblings, and their parents. They had to live with extended family and were forced back into public school after years of homeschooling. Their entire sense of safety and stability was destroyed.
Things that happened before, during, and after incarceration:
— 2021 we received our first IRS audit for 2020 taxes, then we received another audit in 2022 for 2021 taxes. They began by sending us a letter to prove we had been married for as long as we claimed, proving the kids we had together and have claimed since 2005 were our kids. After sending the documents they asked for in, we waited months with no response. Called the IRS to find out our status and would be told they haven’t received anything yet but could take up to 6-8 months before hearing anything as they’re short staffed due to COVID. We’d receive another letter asking for something else. Proof of our 1099 expenses, proof of the truck we bought, hardware store receipt expenses, ect. We would send the information in and be told they didn’t receive it or the time it would take to process the documents. And repeat for 3 years. Before we had to surrender to prison they made a judgement against us saying we owed around $90,000.00. We filed an appeal. The court hearing was set for Aug of 2024 during my husband’s incarceration. I spoke to the judge and prosecutor over the phone and let them know the situation and they agreed to postpone the judgment. We received an email letting us know about pro-bono tax lawyers. We have been using one of the lawyers they suggested. We are still fighting the IRS.
— In 2022 we took out an SBA business loan because our businesses were doing well and we wanted to expand. Unfortunately, due to our arrest and lost businesses we are having a difficult time paying the loan back and the debt is weighing us down.
—January 20, 2025 - January 23, 2025
We received our pardon on Jan 20, 2025. We were calling our families and celebrating the smallest victory we had in a long time. I called my mom while she lay in a hospital bed waiting for a lung transplant. She was crying and rejoicing and just so happy for us. Just three short days later my mom passed away, January 23, 2025. She saw me freed, but I had already missed irreplaceable final months with her and I will never get that time back.
—February 2025 we were drowning in debt so we made a decision to take out some equity in our home and sold a percentage of our home, kind of like a reverse mortgage, so we could pay the debt down.
The last two years have been spent trying to rebuild from financial and emotional ruins. The death threats, being called insurrectionists, traitors, and domestic terrorists all because of ongoing media lies. Our entire family suffers from PTSD. Our children lost their parents, uprooted from our home, hospitalized, and they lost their security at formative ages. I lost precious time with my dying mother. We lost our businesses, our reputation, and our peace. My husband was fortunate enough to get a well paying job, but our ability to earn income is limited, as he is not able to advertise what it is that he does, in fear of the company he works for will be doxted and flooded with negative reviews, until they have to fire him.
The trauma cannot be measured in months served or dollars lost. We were peaceful protesters who harmed no one, destroyed nothing, protected police, and yet our family was torn apart, terrorized, and left to pick up the pieces of a life deliberately broken. No amount of compensation can restore what was stolen from us, especially the time I can never recover with my mother, but the wrongs done to our family deserve to be fully righted.
