Two Connecticut women were sentenced Friday in a federal court after previously pleading guilty to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Jean Lavin, 57, was sentenced to 36 months of probation, five weekends of confinement and 60 days of home detention, according to Bill Miller, public information officer for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. Additionally, she will have to pay $500 in restitution and a $2,500 fine.

Her daughter, Carla Krzywicki, 20, was sentenced to 36 months of probation and 90 days of home detention and will have to pay $500 in restitution, Miller said.

Both were sentenced by Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, according to Miller.

Lavin and Krzywicki are from Canterbury, according to the website listing Capitol Breach Cases from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The mother and daughter said they had taken a bus from Norwich to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to court documents.

According to a complaint document with an arrest warrant, the FBI had received a tip that Lavin and Krzywicki were inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The tip was about a photograph from Krzywicki’s Facebook account that showed the pair outside the Capitol, as well as a photo from inside the Capitol. Phone records also indicated the two women were in an area that included the interior of the Capitol.

The document said the FBI reviewed video of the two “climbing a bike rack that rioters had repurposed from barricades to ladders and placed against the Capitol terraces, allowing them to access the Capitol building,” and the FBI also obtained images of them inside the building.

Lavin was wearing a red jacket, pink shirt and a pink hat that said "Trump" and was carrying a sign that read "Trump won" on one side and "Don't allow 7 states of cheaters to hijack our election!" on the other side, according to the document. Krzywicki was wearing a black jacket, blue hooded "Trump" sweatshirt, a blue face mask and a red winter hat that said "Trump," the document said.

The women were arrested in September 2021 and pleaded guilty on Jan. 11, 2022.

The document said Lavin and Krzywicki told the FBI during a June 15, 2021, interview in Connecticut that they took a bus from Norwich to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021; the bus driver got lost in New York City and they arrived in Washington, D.C., after former President Donald Trump’s speech. Krzywicki said a "local Facebook group" organized the trip.

They told the FBI that they followed the crowd to the Capitol and “entered the Capitol building through an unknown doorway” and said the “door and window glass of the door were already damaged,” according to the document. An FBI special agent said that, based on his review, they entered the U.S. Capitol through the Senate wing door.

According to the document, Lavin said they were in the building for less than an hour, left for about 20 minutes, and then returned for about 20 minutes before leaving. Krzywicki said they entered for about 30 minutes, left for about 20 minutes, and returned for about 20 minutes.

Krzywicki told the FBI that "at one point, while inside the Capitol, her mother fell and that was when they both decided to leave the area," according to the complaint document.

According to the document, Krzywicki also told the FBI that "she posted a picture on Facebook, but later deleted it because it seemed like a bad idea to leave it up."

According to a statement of offense in the case of United States of America vs. Jean Lavin, the two women entered through the Senate wing door about 2:24 p.m. and "turned right and proceeded into the Capitol Crypt, where a line of police officers was blocking people from proceeding further. The crowd in the Crypt pushed past the police officers and Lavin and Krzywicki proceeded to the Crypt Lobby, down to Orientation Lobby, but then returned to the Crypt Lobby at approximately 2:46 p.m. and then to the Crypt at approximately 2:47 p.m." The pair "returned to the Northwest Corridor at approximately 2:48 p.m., where they witnessed the violent second breach of the Senate Wing Door by rioters." They left the Capitol through the Senate wing door about 2:56 p.m.

Lavin's lawyer, public defender Charles Wilson, wrote in court documents that Lavin had no plans that day other than to see Trump speak, and now recognizes that entering the Capitol was wrong, the Associated Press reported.

k.drelich@theday.com