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CLEVELAND, Ohio – Christine Priola, a former Cleveland Schools Occupational Therapist, was arrested Thursday morning on charges of participating in last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Priola, 49, made a brief appearance in US District Court in Cleveland to Justice of the Peace Jonathan Greenberg, who transferred his case to the District of Columbia. It was there that federal prosecutors charged about two dozen more.
Priola, of Willoughby, is accused of knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building; violent entry; and illegal activities on the Capitol grounds. She was released on bail, with her travel limited to northern Ohio and Washington for court hearings. Public defenders represented her at Thursday’s hearing.
Authorities said she was one of dozens of rioters in Washington who broke through barricades and stormed the Capitol as Congress was in session to certify Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election.
Protesters initially attended a rally outside Capitol Hill, where President Trump spoke. Many have described the storming of the building as an insurgency to support Trump’s attempts to stay in power. Four rioters and a Capitol Hill policeman died in the melee.
Priola became suspicious after a Getty Images photographer took a photo in the US Senate chamber amid protesters reveling and infiltrating. The photograph showed a woman at the front of the room carrying a sign saying: “Children cry for justice”. Several people on social media have identified the woman as Priola.
In an affidavit filed Thursday, David Kasulones, an assistant to the U.S. Marshal, said the FBI received anonymous intelligence on Friday (January 8) that also named Priola as the woman in the photo. Authorities compared photos taken of the woman in the Senate Chamber with other photos of the Willoughby woman.
Authorities searched Priola’s home on Friday evening. They seized a laptop, two desktops and several USB drives, according to Kasulones’ affidavit. Officers also recovered clothing, the sign she was holding “and other documents consistent with the photographs of Priola taken on January 6,” Kasulones wrote.
Investigators were also able to track his movements last week using his cell phone. At one point during the attack, she was standing just northeast of the Capitol building, according to the Deputy Marshal’s affidavit.
The day after the rally, Priola submitted his resignation from the school district in a conspiratorial letter to officials. In it, she said she refused to take a coronavirus vaccine to return to class and did not agree with union dues “which help fund people and groups who support the murder of children in to be born ”.
She also said she would “change course to speak out against the global scourge of human trafficking and pedophilia, including in our government agencies and children’s service agencies.”
Priola graduated from Eastlake North High School and received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Capital University before attending Indianapolis University for her graduate degree, according to her personal file. She began working as an occupational therapist for Cleveland Schools in August 2000. She has a grown daughter.
“I have known for many years that I wanted to work with children and help their development,” Priola wrote to school officials. “I understand that development in the critical years of childhood helps to lay the foundation for healthy, safe and respectful living.”
In performance reviews, supervisors praised his hard work, reliability and courtesy in helping students with special needs.
“Christine is a hardworking professional,” wrote a supervisor in the early 2000s. “She’s a non-complaining team player. [Priola] gets along well with students, parents and teachers. It is a pleasure to work with her.
She worked for the district for about a dozen years before taking a year off. She returned in 2014. She was on leave when she attended the rally in Washington, DC
A spokeswoman for Cleveland Schools said the district is not commenting on staff issues, “particularly when they are part of an ongoing investigation.”
The district, however, issued a statement that it “deeply condemns the actions of those involved in the riots inside the Capitol and on the grounds of the Capitol. The right to protest peacefully, as protected by the First Amendment, is the foundation of our democracy. The forcible takeover and willful destruction of our government is not. “
While Priola’s personal file offers a glowing account of her work, the court records offer a different view. She changed her last name from Snyder to Priola in 2015, six years after her divorce.
“I don’t want to have that name anymore,” she said in a document filed in Lake County Estates Court. She changed her name to Priola, her grandmother’s maiden name.
She remarried later in May 2018. She filed for divorce seven months later, according to records.
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