Exclusive: I-Team 8 talks with Indiana woman, first sentenced for US Capitol riots
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Jan. 6, 2021, was a dark day for Anna Morgan-Lloyd of Bloomfield, Indiana.
Morgan-Lloyd says she has been well-received in her hometown, and some people have called her a hero, a label she doesn’t like.
She regrets entering the U.S. Capitol and providing what she says was unintentional cover for people that were there to do harm.
“My remorse was sincere. It is still sincere. If I could take back being there that day, I would gladly take it back,” Morgan-Lloyd said.
Morgan-Lloyd agreed to an interview if News 8 did not show her face. A picture of her inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, helped the FBI build a case against her. In the picture, Morgan-Lloyd is in the gray sweatshirt; next to her in the red hat is Dona Bissey. A woman on the left was identified in court records as “Linda.”
Morgan-Lloyd told I-Team 8 that “Linda” was the reason she went into the Capitol in the first place.
I-Team 8 asked Morgan-Lloyd, “Do you feel like you got sucked into, not the violence, but sucked into going into the building?”
She said she didn’t go in to prove a point. “I didn’t go in to make a statement about the government. I didn’t go in … 100% the only reason I went in was to get that 74-year-old woman out. I didn’t go in to prove a point or be brave. Quite honestly, I was shaken, you know. I’m not one to break the law. I support the police. I didn’t try an prove a point, so it is not like I got sucked in, too. Like I told the FBI, if I knew I was going to get arrested for it, I would have gone in and seen the artwork and the rest of the Capitol building,” Morgan-Lloyd said.
She told I-Team 8 she didn’t go very far into the Capitol, maybe 20 feet, and spent close to 15 minutes inside. Bissey took a couple pictures that were posted online, and the two left. For her time in the Capitol, a federal judge sentenced her to 36 months on probation with a term of community service plus a $500 fine.
“It is like sacred ground when I seen on guy smoking a joint in there. I looked at him and was like, ‘Seriously, that was your point for coming here?’ because it was disrespectful.” Morgan-Lloyd said.
I-Team also asked, “What do you have to say to the people that did tear stuff up, that were in there for the violence?”
She responded, “They have to live with that because they know they went in there for that reason, and I’d say that most of them haven’t been caught because they might be protected and they will still have to live with it, and I hope they realize how much it has disrupted my life, the violence they did, because if they had never committed violence, there is a good chance that Jan. 6 would die away. It never will for the rest of my life. Jan. 6 will be a day to stick my head in the sand, and not watch TV, and all that,” Morgan-Lloyd said.
When her employer, Cook Medical, found out she was in the Capitol, she was fired from her job of 13 years.
As the first person sentenced for the Capitol riots, Morgan-Lloyd has taken a place in history she did not want.
“You want this to go away, don’t you?” I-Team 8 asked.
“Yes,” she said.
So why was she talking with News 8.
“Because I am regretful for the day, and I feel like I’m between two. I’m in a very bad position. I hear that the Democrats are mad at me because they don’t think I’m remorseful enough. They don’t know me, and then I have the Republicans that are mad at me because I am remorseful. … I’m just a person,” Morgan-Lloyd said.
Morgan-Lloyd told I-Team 8 that she is not a member of any fringe political groups, and that the FBI spent hours asking her about her political activities. She calls herself a lifelong Democrat, and was all-in for Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 until she heard Donald Trump in the Republican debates. By November, she was pulling the lever for Trump and Mike Pence.
She also believes the 2020 election was stolen from them.
“A very large tragedy about Jan. 6 is that no one is discussing why all of these people were in Washington, D.C.,” she said.
Why did she go to the Capitol?
“I went because of the election. We have never stopped counting votes on election night. … Too many places stopped counting. It is like they are cheating in plain sight, and they are still able to deny it,” Morgan-Lloyd said.
On Jan. 6, 2021, she and Bissey went to the Ellipse to hear Trump’s speech; that’s where they met “Linda.” When “Linda” headed to the Capitol they followed. Morgan-Lloyd says when they arrived at the Capitol, the doors were open. Capitol staffers were leaving the building. The barricades were down, and police were not stopping anyone from going inside. She says the entrance they used was not under siege, and that the violence was on the other side of the building. But, there was a crowd and she feared for her new friend’s safety, so they went inside.
So, if she had it do over again, what should she do? “That is hard because I can’t stand the thought of that, something happening to that woman, but what has happened to me really sucks. I’m a simple person,” Morgan-Lloyd said. “I would have to say I would have stopped at the bottom of the stairs no matter what, and that is hard for me to say because I couldn’t bear the thought of something happening to her, getting knocked down or hurt.”
Morgan-Lloyd’s lawyer asked her to testify in front of the U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riots. She has not agreed to do so.