A Massachusetts doctor who was arrested last week for allegedly punching a police officer during the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol appeared in federal court in Washington, D.C., Tuesday.
Dr. Jacquelyn Starer, 68, appeared in District of Columbia federal court by videoconference on charges including felony civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding officers.
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She accepted the conditions of her release – including that she can’t go to D.C. except for court hearings and that she must submit to drug testing if prosecutors request it – and is due back in court on Feb. 9.
Starer first appeared in court last week after her arrest. Outside of court the practicing doctor from Ashland who worked at Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital did not want to talk about the allegations against her, why she may have been in D.C. that day or anything related to the case.
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If convicted, she faces up to 12 years in prison.
Starer but "is no longer active at our organization," a representative for Brigham and Women's Hospital said.
She has served as the president of the Massachusetts Society of Addiction Medicine. Starer's disciplinary record is clean, according to the state's Board of Registration in Medicine.
The FBI was tipped off on Jan. 11, 2021, to Starer's plan to attend the march that led to the riot on Jan. 6, according to court documents. The tipster said she planned to bring pepper spray.
Phone and hotel records confirmed Starer was in the area, and images found online appeared to show her at the march and later at the riot outside and inside the Capitol, officials said.
Bodycam footage from a Washington, D.C., Metropolitan police officer show Starer hitting an officer in the Capitol Rotunda, according to a court document. The officer who was struck told investigators that she remembered the incident and recognized the woman who hit her in the bodycam footage.
Starer appeared from footage of the incident to have been affected by a chemical deployed to control the crowd, officials said. More footage, including images taken by news photographers, appears to show her being helped inside and outside of the Capitol minutes later.
Someone who's worked with Starer identified her from five images during the riot, including one of her appearing to strike the police officer, officials said.
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Starer is one of nearly 900 people who have been arrested in the Jan. 6 riot investigation, which remains ongoing, prosecutors said. Her arrest comes a day after a congressional panel investigating the riot, which left five people dead and interrupted Congress' certification of the federal election, recommended that the Justice Department bring charges against former President Donald Trump and some of his associates.
