A mother-son duo who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and who were deemed “airheads” by internet sleuths have been arrested and charged by the FBI, Law&Crime reports.
Maryann Mooney-Rondon and Rafael Rondon were arrested in Syracuse, NY. The mother-and-son team were dubbed “AirheadLady” and “AirheadBoy” by HuffPost journalist Ryan Reilly, author of the upcoming book “Sedition Hunters,” because both were seen wearing emergency escape hoods.
The pair reportedly stormed Nancy Pelosi’s office — where Maryann admitted to authorities that she helped a man steal a laptop that was there.
“In an approximately 5-second video recorded by a bystander from inside the Speaker’s office conference room, an individual’s arm is shown reaching from outside the frame of the recording toward a laptop and gloves that are sitting on a conference table,” according to the FBI’s 9-page affidavit. “The individual is wearing a dark padded jacket and appears to have a ring on their right-hand thumb and another ring on their right-hand ring finger, consistent with images of MARYANN MOONEY-RONDON captured in CCTV surveillance footage. In the bystander video, a female voice states, ‘Dude, put on gloves,’ while an unidentified male with his back turned to the camera then appears to use the gloves to lift the laptop from the table before the recording ends.”
“After making her way to Speaker Pelosi’s conference room, Maryann Mooney-Rondon admitted to providing gloves to a male individual to facilitate the theft of a government laptop from the conference room,” the affidavit continues. “Maryann Mooney-Rondon confirmed that it was her arm that was shown in the above-referenced bystander video. Maryann Mooney-Rondon stated that she saw ‘the gentleman that took the computer,’ explaining further that, ‘I’m pretty sure I saw him put it in a backpack . . . probably 100 percent.’”
“He asked, he said, give me – I don’t know if it was gloves or a scarf I was wearing – and like I said he scared me,” she is quoted telling authorities.
“When he asked for, whatever he asked for to, I think he just didn’t want to touch it . . . I mean that’s why I was like, we gotta get out of here, this isn’t right, I mean he scared the crap out of me,” she also allegedly said.
Rafael Rondon also allegedly admitted to helping the man steal the laptop.
“While we were in the office, one of the [individuals], he was trying to rip the ethernet cords to one of the laptops, and he yelled at me and my mother to help him. And I was honestly a little bit afraid, because I didn’t know if he had anything on him . . . So I assisted him a little bit, and that was probably stupid of me,” he is quoted telling authorities.
According to the FBI, the son added: “I think I like pushed in his bag a little bit using a glove ‘cause he didn’t want to get his fingerprints on it.”
Another woman charged in relation to the Capitol riot, 22-year-old Riley June Williams, has been accused of stealing a laptop from Pelosi’s office.
