FBI arrests three more Kentuckians in Capitol riot, including nurse who said she’d ‘do it again’
A Kentucky husband and wife were arrested Tuesday by federal agents for allegedly participating in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the FBI announced.
Lori Ann Vinson, a nurse, and Thomas Ray Vinson were arrested by federal agents in Owensboro Tuesday afternoon, the FBI said. Their charges include knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct which impedes the conduct of government business, disruptive conduct in the Capitol buildings, and parading, demonstrating or picketing the Capitol buildings.
And late Tuesday night, the FBI in Louisville announced that they had arrested Clayton Ray Mullins, of Benton, on Tuesday, charging him with multiple offenses in connection with the riot, including assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers; obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder; violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; and knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds.
Mullins allegedly assaulted a police officer by grabbing his leg and pulling him down steps outside the Capitol, according to a newly released affidavit from the FBI. The officer was injured and required hospitalization.
Lori Vinson made headlines shortly after the riot when she spoke to multiple media outlets about entering the Capitol on Jan. 6 and said she’d been fired for it. Vinson said she “would do it again tomorrow.” Timothy Beam, a spokesman for the FBI in Louisville, confirmed that the Vinson arrested was the same one who appeared in those reports.
She said she was fired from Ascension St. Vincent hospital in Evansville, Ind.
In January, Vinson said that FBI investigators spoke with her, but she said she wasn’t charged with anything. She didn’t expect to hear from the FBI again, according to WEHT in Evansville. She told WZTV in Nashville, “The doors were open, people were filing through, there were no signs that said, ‘Do not enter’ and “there were no cops saying ‘Don’t come in.’”
Multiple videos have since shown the violence the crowd directed at officers standing in their way.
The Vinsons were in federal custody Tuesday afternoon and were expected to have their initial federal court appearances Tuesday, the FBI said.
In a statement filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., a special agent for the FBI wrote that he interviewed Lori and Thomas Vinson in a phone call Jan. 8, and that Lori Vinson said then that the couple had been “’let in’ and did not ‘bust in’” to the Capitol.
“Lori Vinson indicated that she and Thomas Vinson attended a rally near the White House lawn and walked straight to the U.S. Capitol, up the steps, and straight through the door, following a steam of people inside,” he wrote. “Lori Vinson denied they were waiting outside for someone to break down the doors or windows to get in.”
The agent said Lori Vinson told him that the couple decided to leave after they saw “a person hitting a door with U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell’s name on it with a crowd control stanchion three times.”
“Thomas Vinson said they went to the Capitol as a ‘peaceful bunch of people there to express their views to Congress…,’ describing their conduct mainly as chanting and talking. According to the Vinsons, they did not damage or take anything.”
In a later interview, the agent wrote, Lori Vinson “claimed she knew there was something going on related to the certification of the electoral votes on January 6, 2021, but did not know that Congress was ‘in session’ at that time and claimed that she expected that no Congressional officials would be in the building because they certainly would not have been allowed entry if they were in session.
“She also claimed that she did not hear the alarms going off inside the Capitol building during her initial entry into the Capitol, but noticed it after recently reviewing the video. Lori Vinson said it was very loud and the crowd noise, including people chanting, made it hard to differentiate from the alarm. Lori Vinson advised she was unsure whether she would be able to enter the Capitol building the same way on other days, as she had never visited it before.”
The agent said one of Lori Vinson’s Facebook friends initially contacted the FBI because they had seen a post on Facebook in which she “claimed to be one of the first 100 people to enter the Capitol.”
The FBI also found photos of the Vinsons outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 which were provided to a local news station by Vinson, according to court records.
A second witness interviewed by the FBI said that Lori Vinson showed them photos and video taken inside the Capitol and told them that she and her husband had spent about 40 minutes walking around inside.
Surveillance footage and accompanying photographs from inside the Capitol also shows the couple inside, according to the agent’s statement.
This story was originally published February 23, 2021 at 2:19 PM.