Central Falls man who entered US Capitol on Jan. 6 pleads guilty

Juan Rodriguez wore a “Batman” beanie to the Capitol and locked himself in a Senate office along with others, according to the FBI

An FBI report said that Juan Rodriguez of Central Falls, R.I., asked officers for his cellphone, which he had left charging in office S202 inside the US Capitol. Officers obliged. They found his phone, checked to confirm it was his, and then returned it to Rodriguez. No more glass remained in two of the three lower panes in the window, so it was easy to hand the phone over to Rodriguez, who was standing outside.COURTESY OF FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

WASHINGTON — The Central Falls man accused of taking part in the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol has pleaded guilty to two of the charges against him, according to federal prosecutors.

Juan Rodriguez, who was seen in surveillance photos wearing a “Batman” beanie at the Capitol, pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in a room in the Capitol with the intent to disrupt, and obstructing and impeding passage in a Capitol building, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.

Three other counts were dismissed as a result of the plea deal, including entering and remaining in a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building.

Rodriguez, 30, is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 16.

A copy of the plea agreement was not immediately available.

Rodriguez was the fourth Rhode Islander charged in the attack on the Capitol, after federal agents took him into custody in Central Falls in July, more than two years after the pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., where rioters stormed the Capitol during the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

Rodriguez and other defendants locked themselves inside a Senate office that had its window smashed from the outside during the chaotic breach of the Capitol, according to an FBI affidavit. He was later escorted out of the Capitol by police, but returned to the window ledge from outside, looking for his cell phone that was charging inside the office.

Officers walked Juan Rodriguez (yellow and black hat) through the Rotunda and out the Rotunda door of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.COURTESY OF FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

Photos included in court documents show Rodriguez wearing a black and yellow “Batman” beanie inside the Capitol rotunda, and another photo shows him on the ledge talking to officers through the smashed glass.

Agents served Google with a search warrant and used location data from Rodriguez’s phone to tie him to the Capitol riot. The FBI interviewed Rodriguez in September 2022, when he acknowledged he attended the Trump rally on Jan. 6 and identified himself in photos wearing the beanie.

Neither Rodriguez nor his public defender could be reached for comment on the plea agreement.

Asked in July if he had any comment on his arrest, Rodriguez emailed a Globe reporter: “Yeah. Send bitcoin to this wallet address to help those unjustly detained for January 6.”

Rodriguez is the third Rhode Island defendant to plead guilty in federal court to charges related to Jan. 6.

Bernard Joseph Sirr of North Kingstown, a former employee at the R.I. Nuclear Science Center, was sentenced to two months in federal prison earlier this year for shoving police officers during the insurrection.

Another Rhode Island defendant, William Cotton of Hopkinton, was sentenced to nine months probation in September after pleading guilty to entering the Senate wing of the Capitol during the riot.

Timothy Desjardins of Providence is awaiting trial, accused of attacking officers with a broken table leg as they tried to stop a mob in a tunnel area.