NBC Connecticut Investigates has learned a CT resident was inside the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 and months later, he was elected Derby alderman.
We spoke with Gino DiGiovanni Jr., 41, after a board meeting on Oct. 13, 2022.
We showed DiGiovanni photos and screen grabs from Jan. 6, obtained by NBC Connecticut. He has not been charged or arrested in connection with Jan. 6.
Yeah, I was there. And obviously, you got the pictures to prove it…I was there, I went inside there, and, you know, I didn't damage or break anything.
Gino DiGiovanni Jr.
Get top local stories in Connecticut delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC Connecticut's News Headlines newsletter.
He confirmed he went to the Capitol after former President Trump finished speaking at the “Stop the Steal” rally a few blocks away.
When we asked DiGiovanni if he thought the 2020 election was stolen, he said, “Well, I think there's some discrepancies there.”
Open source surveillance video indicated DiGiovanni entered the Upper West Terrace door of the Capitol around 2:38 p.m., shortly after people inside the Capitol walked out that door, and people held it open for others.
Local
Court documents in another Jan. 6 case described this door as “a non-public, alarmed exit door” that also had a “blaring high-pitched alarm” that was going off at least one minute before DiGiovanni entered.
We asked DiGiovanni if he was there when all the violence was going on.
“No, no, I didn't see any violence…Like I said to you, when I got there, there was Capitol Police at the door. And the doors were open. I walked in,” he said.
You could also see DiGiovanni in the crowd outside the west side of the Capitol, apparently before it was breached, in video used in the trial of Jan. 6 defendant Nicholas DeCarlo.
Objects were being thrown, and there was a lot of smoke and yelling.
Ryan Reilly has covered the Capitol breach extensively for NBC News and said while a handful of people who said they just walked through the Capitol have been acquitted or just given probation, many have also been convicted and received jail time.
“It was this mob mentality that sort of took place and people did not think that they were going to get in trouble for overtaking the inauguration platform and then storming up those stairs,” Reilly said.
Former assistant federal prosecutor Rob Sanders, who now teaches national security at the University of New Haven, explained the law is clear on what DiGiovanni did, and Sanders would not be surprised if DiGiovanni gets charged by the feds.
“Trespasser. At the misdemeanor level…walking in the building in an unauthorized state as part of that mob, made him a trespasser because that mob entered the building through violence and destruction of government property,” Sanders said of DiGiovanni.
DiGiovanni said he is ready for whatever comes next.
“If somebody calls me and says, ‘Hey, Gino, we're going to arrest you for trespassing in the Capitol that day,’ then I’m going to have to deal with that at that time,” DiGiovanni said.
We asked the Office of the U.S. Attorney in New Haven about DiGiovanni. It had no comment.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. said in the 21 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 880 individuals have been arrested in connection with the Capitol breach.
Seven people from Connecticut have been charged, five federally.
