- Simone Gold pleaded guilty Thursday to illegally entering the Capitol Building during the January 6 riot.
- The outspoken anti-vaccine doctor was arrested for taking part in the
Capitol Riot in January 2021.
A doctor who has been outspoken against COVID vaccines pleaded guilty on Thursday to taking part in the Capitol riot.
Simone Gold agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, according to the plea agreement, which was viewed by Insider. The count faces a maximum possible penalty of a year in prison and a find of $100,000.
In exchange for pleading guilty to that count, prosecutors agreed to drop four other charges.
Gold admitted to the court that she traveled to Washington, DC, with plans to speak at a "Rally for Health Freedom" scheduled to take place on January 6. When her speech was cancelled, she says she followed a group to the Capitol, and entered the building.
While Gold told The Washington Post in a January 2021 interview that she didn't think it was illegal to enter the building, her plea agreement stipulates that she admits knowing what she was doing that day was not legal.
In The Post interview, Gold also admitted some regret for taking part in the riot, because she feared it was distracting from her activism work.
Gold first came on the public scene in July 2020, when she took part in a press conference outside the Supreme Court, organized by a conservative group, to protest pandemic lockdowns. Gold told The Post that she was fired from her jobs working in two emergency rooms after taking part in the event.
She later wrote a public letter to then-President Trump, promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus. The Food and Drug Administration withdrew emergency use authorization for the drug after finding it "unlikely to be effective" and having several safety risks including the possibility of causing heart problems.
Gold did not immediately return Insider's request for comment on Friday.