Lowes Island couple charged with entering Capitol during Jan. 6 riot

A Lowes Island husband and wife are accused of entering the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Thomas Kasperek, 67, and Dr. Daphne Thomas Kasperek, 58, were arrested by the FBI on March 28 during a search of their home on Blockhouse Point Place, according to Robert L. Jenkins Jr., the attorney representing Thomas Kasperek.

A March 21 motion filed by a federal prosecutor said investigators were looking into “allegations” that the couple “participated in violent and disorderly conduct,” but neither was charged ultimately with engaging in violent behavior.

They were charged with entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a Capitol building; and demonstrating or picketing in any Capitol building, according to a criminal complaint filed with their arrest. All the charges are misdemeanors.

The Kaspereks appeared in federal court on March 28 and were released. They are scheduled to appear for a hearing in D.C. on April 19.

The FBI first received a tip just a week after the riot about the Kaspereks’ alleged involvement, according to a criminal complaint written by an FBI special agent whose name was redacted from court documents. Three years later, the same agent spoke to the informant, who identified the Kaspereks from Capitol security footage.

Using cell phone location data, security video, police body-camera footage and other “open-source” video, “the FBI traced the Kaspereks’ path through the Capitol grounds and building,” according to the complaint.

The Kaspereks entered the Capitol through the Senate Wing Door at 2:23 p.m. and departed through the Senate Wing Door window at 2:35 p.m., according to the complaint. During those 12 minutes, they walked through the Capitol Crypt and video showed Thomas Kasperek “verbally engaged” with police officers, the complaint said.

Thomas Kasperek declined to comment on the allegations.

In an April 1 interview on Sebastian Gorka’s podcast, Thomas and Daphne Kasperek did not dispute any allegations in the complaint.

“They had a case. They had pictures. They’d been working on it for a while,” Thomas Kasperek said.

“We wanted to hear our voice heard,” Daphne Kasperek said. “That’s all we went in (for). We were there 12 minutes. That’s it.”

Jenkins declined to comment about whether Thomas Kasperek disputes the allegations that he entered the Capitol during the riot, but he said Kasperek has been a “law-abiding citizen” and isn’t charged with taking part in the day’s violence.

“There was a lot of violence perpetrated at the Capitol, and then there were some individuals who were there who were not engaged in any violent contact,” Jenkins said. “I think it’s fair to distinguish those who engaged in violence versus those who were present without participating in any violence.”

Rioters injured about 140 police officers during the attack. A member of the mob was killed by a Capitol Police officer while she was trying to enter the Speaker’s Lobby. Eight other people died during the riot or in the following days, including four police officers who killed themselves, The Associated Press reported.

Thomas Kasperek is a pastor and counselor who “(provides) Christian discipleship, spiritual direction, inner-healing prayer, and miraculous healing, in both the clinical and church setting,” according to the website of a “Christ-centered, Biblically-based whole health” practice the couple now runs.

Daphne Kasperek is a physician who founded a medical group in 2001 and practiced at Inova Loudoun Hospital until 2022, when she was fired by the medical group after a dispute with the hospital over her COVID-19 vaccine waiver. She sued the hospital and the medical group, and the parties settled the case last year.

Jenkins said he didn’t have a complete list of items seized from the Kaspereks’ home but that the items included two legally purchased handguns owned by Thomas Kasperek.

Lira Gallagher, a spokeswoman with the FBI’s D.C. field office, said in an email that “court-authorized law-enforcement activity” occurred at the Kaspereks’ home but declined to elaborate.

H. Heather Shaner, Daphne Kasperek’s court-appointed attorney, said on April 2 that Kasperek is planning to retain private counsel.

The Kaspereks are among some 1,265 people charged since the Jan. 6 attack, according to the Department of Justice. Those charges range from misdemeanors to serious felonies like assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy. As of January 2024, more than 700 defendants had pleaded guilty to at least one charge and another 170 had been convicted at trial, according to the AP.

‘PUT ON NOTICE’

Thomas Kasperek has been a regular critic of local and state elections officials, often repeating former President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election.

In 2022, Kasperek, along with Richard Ryan, of Ashburn, filed a lawsuit in Loudoun Circuit Court against the county, arguing that the county used “illegally certified” and “non-compliant” electronic voting machines in the 2020 and 2021 general elections, the Times-Mirror previously reported.

The lawsuit said, without providing evidence, that election officials engaged in “intentional and unintentional cooperation with nefarious actors to alter the results of 2020 and 2021” and that state and local officials “collaborated” in the alleged effort.

The lawsuit was dismissed last year.

In a March 28 interview on Gorka’s podcast after the Kaspereks’ arrest, Ryan said, “we will be back to submit another lawsuit.”

While denying results of the 2020 election, Kasperek also helped oversee elections in Loudoun County. In 2021, he worked as a Republican assistant chief election officer at Park View High School polling place in Sterling, according to Loudoun Deputy Director of Elections Richard Keech. In 2022, Kasperek was a Republican election officer at Discovery Elementary School precinct in Ashburn.

Election workers are approved by the county political parties and are paid $200 by the county per election, according to Keech. He said about 800 to 900 work per election. Their duties include assisting voters as they check in at the polls and monitoring that voting machines are working properly.

In emails and at Electoral Board meetings, Kasperek has continued to voice baseless claims of fraud in the county’s electoral system. The board has a 2-1 Republican majority.

“ALL ELECTION OFFICIALS ARE HEREBY PUT ON NOTICE,” a Nov. 22, 2023, email from Kasperek to election officials said. The Times-Mirror obtained several emails from Kasperek to election officials through a Freedom of Information Act request.

“We have had enough of sloppy elections in Loudoun County, and we want an end-to-end investigation into the processes and chain-of-custody of all election materials, including hand counting the ‘official paper ballots’ to validate the accuracy of all electronic voting equipment tally results and election reporting,” Kasperek said in the email.

But on Dec. 6, Loudoun County Republican Committee Chair Scott Pio said in an email to Kasperek that “I personally do not believe the argument that there is fraud in Loudoun. While I believe there are problems in other states, it is not a hyper local issue.”

“The LCRC continues to appreciate the 1,000s of times we have contacted the Registrars office and seeing resolutions and problems solved,” he said.

Pio also commended election officials for conducting a risk-limiting audit.

“Hand counting the entire HOD 27 race was no easy task and it was accomplished and shown to provide a lot of credit to the Loudoun County Registrar’s office, its staff and volunteers for having strong and accurate elections in Loudoun,” he said. “I appreciate the work the Registrars office does making sure our elections are accurate and fair. Witnessing firsthand, the machines aren’t as accurate as I had hoped, but most of the problems of these ballots can be resolved with a voter reading the instructions on a ballot. Not following the rules of a ballot causes the machine to have issues.”

After the Kaspereks’ arrest, Pio declined to comment but sent a statement to the Times-Mirror via text.

“I pray for Tom, his wife, his family and their kids,” Pio said. “I pray for forgiveness and peace for all going through these ordeals.”

Kasperek is a member of the LCRC.

At an Electoral Board meeting on Feb. 8, Kasperek invited election officials to a showing of “Let My People Go,” a film about “the bondage of the American people” — namely, those who were arrested for involvement in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

According to its website, “The film presents two overlapping narratives of America’s enslavement.”

“The first form of slavery is achieved using proprietary ‘black boxes’ and software, where swamp candidates are selected rather than elected. Massive ballot harvesting operations provide the paper trail to cover up the greatest crime in our nation’s history — the removal of Donald J. Trump. The second form of slavery focuses on the real-life consequences of the Americans who gathered and protested the theft of their votes on November 3rd — the January Sixers — that now languish in prison,” the website says.

Kasperek told the board that the film would “be very enlightening for you to understand what’s going on in your election infrastructure from a national perspective that you may or may not know about.”

Kasperek has also questioned the “risk-limiting audits” that the county conducted after the June 2023 Democratic primary and November 2023 general election.

According to a county press release, “During this type of audit, a bi-partisan team hand counts a batch of ballots and compares the results to the reported outcome.” The November 2023 audit “confirmed that the county’s electronic voting system accurately reported the correct outcome” of the election, the release said.

But on Feb. 8, Kasperek said the audit is “not acceptable as a tool to validate elections.”

The Times-Mirror previously reported that Kasperek attended a board meeting in May 2022, touting a binder labeled “Audit Virginia Save America.” He said the binder included research into “some abnormalities in our election process.”

Robert Moses, a Democratic-appointed Electoral Board member who served in 2021 and 2022, said Thomas Kasperek was among a group of Republican election deniers who frequently asked questions at meetings and filed many Freedom of Information Act requests. Moses said the board and office tried to answer all of Kasperek’s questions and FOIA requests, but Kasperek was never satisfied.

“These are all theories of this group of people that believe the 2020 election was stolen. He took their game plan and sometimes rewrote it himself,” Moses said. “He asked the same questions over and over again.”

In a text message to the Times-Mirror, Board of Supervisors Vice Chair Juli Briskman (D-Algonkian), in whose district the Kaspereks live, said Thomas Kasperek “is a frequent flyer at Electoral Board and Board of Supervisors meetings claiming elections fraud and irregularities without a shred of evidence.”

“So it is not surprising that he and his wife were apparent participants in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. But it is a good reminder that the threats to our Democracy are real and closer than we might think,” she said.

‘Miraculous healing’

Thomas and Daphne Kasperek are listed as the co-founders of the Dr. Lily David Institute of Health and Healing, a “Christ-centered, Biblically-based whole health provider, practicing telemedicine,” according to its website.

“We view the patient-physician relationship as a partnership also with our Father in Heaven — the True Healer,” the website says. “We offer our services as a whole health practice, body, soul, and spirit.”

While Daphne Kasperek has a medical degree and is “board-certified in emergency medicine,” Thomas Kasperek does not have a medical degree. The website says Thomas Kasperek “has spent the last 21 years administering pastoral care & counseling, specifically providing Christian discipleship, spiritual direction, inner-healing prayer, and miraculous healing, in both the clinical and church setting.”

Daphne Kasperek was also listed as a medical practitioner at The Sanctuary Wellness Center in Berryville. The Sanctuary is a “Gathering of holistic healing arts specialists passionate about restoring vitality, joy, and health in those seeking support,” its website says. As of March 29, the website no longer lists her as a practitioner there.

In a statement to the Times-Mirror on March 29, The Sanctuary said Daphne Kasperek previously “rent(ed) a space” at their practice. “The Sanctuary is not currently affiliated with Dr. Kasperek,” they said.

In 2022, Daphne Kasperek filed a federal lawsuit against Inova Loudoun Hospital and Commonwealth Emergency Physicians alleging she was “forcibly removed” from the practice after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, citing a medical condition. She co-founded CEP in 2001 “for the explicit purpose of providing emergency medical services to Loudoun Hospital Center, Inova’s predecessor,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit said that Daphne has a heart condition that “prevented her from obtaining a vaccination due to the risk of a reaction exacerbating her condition and causing her serious physical harm.” Inova granted her a “permanent exemption” from their vaccine mandate in July 2021 but revoked it that December.

Daphne Kasperek was placed on a leave of absence and later fired by CEP after she sent “unnecessarily confrontational and inappropriate” emails to Inova regarding the vaccine mandate waiver, her termination letter said.