Jessica Watkins

Her trans identity was revealed in 2003 by another soldier.  Jessica joined the U.S. Army while the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was still in effect and hid the fact that she was transgender. Watkins had been looking online for support groups to talk about what she was going through when another soldier borrowed her computer, saw her search history, and confronted her.  “He came into my room and slammed the door and put my laptop in front of me and screamed ‘I know what you are, fa***t,'” Watkins recounted on the stand. “I panicked and went AWOL. I ran.”

Jessica testified later about her painful process of coming out about her gender identity during this time. She moved as far away as she could to Alaska.  After hiding out for two months in Alaska, Jessica turned herself in. She left the Army with an other-than-honorable discharge. She also came out to her parents, she said, and was “asked never to come home again.”  Though her family eventually became accepting of her, she said, Jessica still struggles with her identity. She doesn’t feel as though she “belonged” in the trans community.

While she considered herself an artist, it didn’t pay the bills.  She found her way to North Carolina and became a first responder as am EMT.   She also met Montana Seniff and together they moved to Woodstock Ohio and decided to go into business together.

They opened a pirate themed bar named Jolly Rogers and began helping out after tornados.  She and Montana got engaged.  She set up the Ohio State Militia to do aid work for the area.  A militia was an idea put forth by the Founding Fathers of local and state militias for protection and community assistance.  The Ohio State militia efforts aided tens of thousands of local residents after tornadoes cut off electricity and was widely praised.  The Ohio State Militia also became security guards during the BLM protests of 2020. 

The election of 2020 was shocking to her and Montana.  How could America have all swing states stop counting with Trump in the lead and open in concert hours later with Biden clearly the winner?  She appeared on the front lawn of the Ohio Statehouse with other militia members between two rival protest groups to protest Biden’s “victory.”

Jessica decided in late December to attend the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally and was thrilled about the prospect of providing security for right-wing figure Roger Stone.  “I was stoked. It’s Roger Stone. It’s Trump’s inner circle. I just thought it was exciting,” though Jessica later learned that a different group of Oath Keepers from Alabama would be taking over the Stone security detail.  Jessica said she helped escort the mother of a “Stop the Steal” rally speaker from the Ellipse to the Capitol on January 6, and that she and other Oath Keepers made their way to the front of the Capitol. The crowd parted down the middle and cheered for the Oath Keepers.

Jessica was dressed in combat gear acquired during her Army days, making her look more menacing. She admitted going inside the Capitol and impeding officers.

“In my mind I thought it was this heroic American moment where I thought people were going into our house, we were going to be heard,” Watkins said. “It was this moment where I lost all basic objectivity. I wasn’t doing security anymore; I wasn’t medic Jess anymore. I was just another idiot.”

She testified that rioters and police started pushing and she “kind of went off” in that moment.

“I want to say I’m sorry to you,” she told the jury, “but I’d rather say I’m sorry to Christopher Owens, the [Metropolitan Police Department] officer who was here. He was the one on the other side of it, protecting the Capitol from my dumb a**.”

Like all the J6rs in the DC Gulag, Jessica faced abuse and humiliation.  For her alleged “crimes” of “conspiring to attack the US Capitol building on January 6,” Jessica Watkins was stripped and left naked in a jail cell for four days with the lights on 24 hours a day.

Despite her contrition, Jessica was accused on several counts, mostly impeding an officer but because of her membership in the Oath Keepers, she was accused of seditious conspiracy, a serious charge that carries a hefty sentence.  Surprisingly, Jessica testified on her own behalf and at one point burst into tears.  Jessica went to trial with codefendants Kelly Meggs and Stewart Rhodes in 2022.  Of the three, Jessica was the only one found innocent of the sedition charge which meant less jail time for her.  But also, her humble contrition in her address to the court helped sway the judge.  In May 2023, Jessica was sentenced by Judge Amit Mehta to 8.5 years in prison, critical of her initial lack of remorse, but acknowledged her more recent apology which the Judge considered heartfelt.   Jessica is serving 8 ½ years for pushing an officer inside the Capitol.

Her fiancé, Montana, created a Givesendgo.com account and had this to say about the trial and sentencing;  

 Jessica Watkins is accused of a litany of offenses related to walking into the doors of the Capitol on January 6th.  Her role on the 6th was a little different, being there primarily to help ensure the safety of others and trying to help people as things turned from a seemingly peaceful event to a barrage of crowd-effecting less lethal dispersion. Jessica was keeping her cool getting people out as others were overcome with such munitions. The lies told by the DOJ are being fought on July 11; please help Jess fight these lies in open court.

UPDATE: Thanks to your support, Jessica was able to fight her charges in court. To say the trial was terrible is an understatement; the government misled and lied often. It is hard to believe that she would have been convicted of most her charges in a less biased venue than Washington D.C. We are asking for help to afford a potential appeal, she is still in need of a lawyer to help defend against a lawsuit based on the lies of J6. 

https://www.givesendgo.com/G29H3?ref=truth11.com