Sarah Carpenter was a retired police officer from Long Island who harbored deep doubts about the integrity of the 2020 election after Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by what she thought was an impossible margin of votes.
She went to the Capitol Building on January 6 and joined thousands of like-minded individuals who agreed that the American voting system had failed.
What happened next should send chills down the spine of anyone who believes in democracy and the American system of justice.
“I asked a police officer what was going on, and he waved me toward an open door,” Carpenter told the South Shore Press in an exclusive interview. “Hundreds of people were going in, and I went along with the crowd.”
The retired New York City cop said that once she was inside, the atmosphere turned dark as “agent provocateurs” she now believes were with Antifa were inciting chaos.
“Now they were escalating, not de-escalating,” Carpenter said, noting that she was maced as she fought to get back outside.
A few days later, members of a New York City police terrorism task force came to Carpenter’s home and took a statement. They were cordial and said she would probably get a $75 summons for trespassing. That changed when a 50-member SWAT team raided her Richmond Hill home shortly after in a show of brutal force that included a police helicopter hovering overhead.
“It became evident what kind of story they wanted to script. They knew I wasn’t a terrorist, that it was all just something to frame Donald Trump,” Carpenter recounted. “They even said they didn’t agree with what they were doing.”
When she wouldn’t take a plea and admit that she had done anything wrong, the Justice Department upped the charges to felonies. Facing 20 years, she called for a trial to prove her innocence. Carpenter ended up before Judge James Boasberg, whom she described as being especially hard on anyone associated with President Trump.
“He ordered that the trial would take only four days, and he wouldn’t let me wage a defense,” said Carpenter, who was forced to use an attorney provided by the government since the lawyers she approached were afraid of repercussions if they took on her case.
“I tried to get my side of the story out, but the judge wouldn’t let me. He wouldn’t even let me present evidence,” Carpenter continued. “It was a show trial completely controlled by Judge Boasberg. He’s a political activist with a dark soul. It’s disgusting how he abused the justice system. He is a dark, dark man with a dark soul.”
The Washington, D.C., jury quickly convicted Carpenter, and she was sentenced to 22 months in prison for obstructing a government proceeding. Though she lived on Long Island, she was sent to a jail in Alabama, where she was imprisoned with other women who were also at the Capitol that day.
At midnight on January 20, 2025, President Trump pardoned the January 6-ers and Carpenter was put on a bus for home. She’s putting her life back together after a harrowing ordeal at the hands of her own government, buoyed by an offer by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to help compile a record for all the world to see how she and her fellow Americans were abused.