ATLANTA — The chairwoman of the Taylor County Republican Party and her husband pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge stemming from their participation in the U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021, according to court documents.
Mandy Robinson-Hand and her husband, Charles Hand III, pleaded guilty to one count of Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building earlier this month. The pair was arrested in March and charged with four misdemeanors.
Emails sent to Robinson-Hand before publication were not returned. The Georgia GOP's website lists Robinson-Hand as the chairwoman for Taylor County, a small county between Columbus and Macon that's home to roughly 8,000 people. Robinson-Hand was also named a "county captain" for Herschel Walker's U.S. Senate campaign in August.
The couple is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 13 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia where they could face six months in prison.
Records obtained from Google, open source documentary footage and U.S. Capitol closed circuit surveillance placed the couple inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. An independent witness from Georgia identified the couple based on screenshots taken from surveillance footage, according to court documents.
A tipster told federal officials that Robinson-Hand posted on Facebook that the couple was “in the (Capitol)" and "Taking our house back,” She alleged they were tear gassed. Robinson-Hand later deleted the posts. Security footage showed the husband breaking a piece of metal fencing and placing it into the back pocket of his jeans.
More than 880 people have been charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and more than 20 have Georgia ties, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.