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WASHINGTON D.C. — A federal judge sentenced a Gilroy woman to 45 days of incarceration Wednesday morning, for her participation in the Jan. 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol, court records show.
Mariposa Castro, who also goes by Imelda Acosta and ran a yoga studio in the South Bay Area, wrote a letter to the court apologizing for her “regrettable lapse in judgment (that) has had a negative affect on my family, and all concerned.” She also said that she wasn’t meant to be taken literally when she yelled, “This is war” as she and thousands of others stormed into the U.S. Capitol.
Castro pleaded guilty last year to illegally picketing inside the U.S. Capitol, a federal offense. She is one of five Bay Area residents implicated in what has become the biggest prosecution in U.S. history, but with most defendants facing misdemeanor trespassing charges.
Prosecutors asked for a 60-day sentence and wrote that she entered the Capitol through a smashed out window. They quoted from a video Castro posted after the incident, in which she referred to herself as “brave” and encouraged others to follow in her footsteps.
“We showed them. We showed them all. Showed this one. War just started. It’s just the beginning. As Trumps says, ‘the best is yet to come,’” she said on the video, according to a prosecution sentencing memo.
Castroy’s attorneys wrote in court papers that she became a supporter of former President Donald Trump after briefly chatting with him at a 2006 golf tournament in Pebble Beach. They described her as a “quiet, gentle soul” who fully supports military, firefighters, and police. In her letter submitted to the court, Castro asked for the judge to consider her entire life, not just her actions on Jan. 6, 2021.
She said that she went to Washington D.C. expecting to participating in a peaceful protest, and looking back thinks she was influenced by the crowd. She wrote that when she said “this is war,” during the riot it was just “hyperbole.” She said she carried a world peace flag throughout the day.
“How many times do we say things in an exaggerated manner, just to show how hurt we feel? It isn’t to be taken literally. We don’t put it into action,” she wrote. “That’s a good and mature quality; otherwise, none of us would be standing.”
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton, a federal judge in Washington D.C. Since Castro’s arrest last year, new defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021 prosecution are being handled by the districts where they reside, so as not to overburden the District of Columbia court system.
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