OCALA, Fla. — A Florida couple who appeared in a documentary about QAnon and fought police officers during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack have been sentenced to prison.
A U.S. District Court judge sentenced Ocala resident Jamie Buteau, 50, to a year and 10 months in prison for assaulting an officer, along with 24 months of supervised release and $2,000 paid in restitution. Buteau's wife, 46-year-old Jennifer Buteau, got 90 days in prison on a misdemeanor count for demonstrating in the Capitol building.
The FBI arrested the Buteaus in June 2021. They pleaded guilty to the charges in July 2023 at the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
Evidence gathered by the government showed that the Buteaus entered the Capitol through a breached door to the Senate wing. Along with a mob of rioters, they propped open a set of rolling doors intended to secure parts of the building. Jamie Buteau threw a folding chair at police, hitting one of them in the arm. The mob then pursued the officers as they fled from the lobby.
After 20 minutes inside the building, mainly around the Capitol Visitor Center, investigators said the Buteaus went outside onto restricted Capitol grounds where they yelled insults at police. Jennifer Buteau spat at officers as police sprayed chemical irritants at the crowd.
According to court documents, multiple people identified the Buteaus to the FBI, including people who saw Jennifer post live video of the attack on her social media account, someone who identified as a family member, and someone who recognized the Buteaus from an interview they gave during an episode of HBO's "VICE News Tonight" about QAnon, the fringe conspiracy-driven political movement.
More than 1,200 people have been charged for their role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Five hundred and fifty-nine of those people, including the Buteaus, have pleaded guilty. Florida leads the nation in the number of arrests related to the attack by far, 105 rioters, earning the state the nickname: "the cradle of the insurrection."