Former Oklahoma City Thunder employee turned in by coworkers pleads guilty in US Capitol riot

By Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN

A former Oklahoma City Thunder employee turned in by her former coworkers pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a misdemeanor charge for her part in the US Capitol insurrection.

Danielle Doyle, 37, pleaded guilty to illegally demonstrating inside the US Capitol on January 6 and agreed to pay $500 in restitution for damage done to the building during the riot. Prosecutors have cut the same deal for other defendants that face similar allegations to Doyle, who was not violent or destructive inside the building.

Doyle’s plea comes in a flurry of deals involving defendants that face lesser charges, with two more defendants scheduled to plead guilty later this week.

The charges have a potential maximum of six month in jail, though it is likely Doyle will be ordered to serve much less, or even no jail time, when she is sentenced in October. Only two rioters have been sentenced so far, one of whom received jail time.

Federal prosecutors identified Doyle after two of her former coworkers at the Oklahoma City Thunder, Oklahoma’s NBA team, reported her to the FBI after they noticed her in CNN video of the riot. Employees for the team had circulated a video of the clip, which showed Doyle inside the Capitol, according to a filing supporting her arrest.

A review of Doyle’s LinkedIn profile shows that she worked for the team from 2010 to 2020 in ticket sales, and the organization confirmed to CNN in March that she had resigned in December 2020 to take a position elsewhere.

Investigators also found surveillance footage allegedly showing Doyle climbing through a broken window and walking down a staircase and through a hallway in the overrun Capitol building.

Fifteen other rioters have pleaded guilty so far in the massive federal investigation, according to CNN’s reporting.

The-CNN-Wire
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