It was Jan. 6, 2021, and a group of die-hard Republicans from Okaloosa County, Florida, had traveled 15 hours north to Washington, for a rally where President Donald Trump urged his followers to try to stop the certification of the election.
After the rally, as a crowd marched toward the Capitol, some of the Florida contingent peeled off. But Sandra Atkinson – who had just been elected chair of the county’s Republican Party – kept marching. The walk would put her in the middle of an insurrection, and eventually, of the dilemma now facing likely presidential contender Gov. Ron DeSantis.
According to a USA TODAY review of multiple videos from the day and an interview with a close Republican Party associate, Atkinson proceeded to the Capitol and through the doors. The same kind of activity has led to criminal charges for many who stormed the Capitol Jan. 6 – charges for unlawful entry, picketing or other nonviolent acts.
Two months later, Atkinson’s name emerged in bold type, in an announcement from DeSantis. She was being given a new job: The governor was appointing her to a statewide regulatory board.
“Atkinson served in and received an honorable discharge from the United States Army,” DeSantis’ office noted when announcing her appointment, “and trained at the Soothing Arts Massage School.”
Giving a political appointment then to a Jan. 6 participant puts DeSantis’ core political dilemma in sharp focus now.
The governor, who is expected to enter the race for the presidential nomination this week, said nothing during Atkinson’s appointment about her role in the insurrection, which was spurred by his main political rival: Trump. His office now declines to answer any questions about what DeSantis knew about Atkinson before her appointment or during her time as a regulator.
Long seen as a leading candidate for the Republican nomination, DeSantis has a fine line to walk regarding Jan. 6. On the one hand, he can draw support from people who believe Trump’s ongoing false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from the GOP. That also risks promoting his presumptive rival’s main talking point.
On the Florida Board of Massage Therapy, Atkinson would regulate providers in much the same way a medical board regulates doctors: By vetting licensed providers who will work, hands-on, with vulnerable, often disrobed clients behind closed doors. Atkinson, alongside six other board members, presided over repeated discussions about whether to grant or revoke state licenses to massage therapists, often because of their criminal histories.
Contacted by USA TODAY, Atkinson at first denied she had entered the Capitol. She then said she declined to comment.
But to others, her role in Jan. 6 was no secret.
Sherri Edwards Cox, who has long served with Atkinson on the Okaloosa County GOP committee, also marched in Washington, though she says she went back to her hotel rather than into the Capitol.
Cox told USA TODAY Atkinson later bragged about going into the building, and claimed to have entered the office of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
After reviewing an online copy of video footage that appears to show Atkinson entering the Capitol, Cox said by text: “Oh, wow! Yup. That’s her alright!” She added: “Ooph.”
Atkinson’s apparent role in the insurrection does not appear to have interfered with her public role as an influential North Florida Republican. She was reelected chairwoman of the Okaloosa County GOP in December 2022. And she remained in the state oversight role DeSantis had given her for nearly a year.
Even when she did finally depart the board, there was no public discussion of her activity on Jan. 6. Her term ended with a blowup of a different kind.
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A Trump hat and shirt
Among the thousands of demonstrators marching for Trump Jan. 6, and the many of them who ultimately stormed the Capitol, it can be hard to isolate a specific face or name. But a collection of evidence points to Atkinson’s presence inside the building.
USA TODAY analyzed social media photographs and video and other footage from Jan. 6 first identified by a member of the Sedition Hunters community, a mostly anonymous volunteer collective of researchers that has identified hundreds of Capitol rioters and sent dossiers on many to the FBI.
The evidence starts with the videos posted by Cox, Atkinson’s local Republican colleague, which were public on social media. Atkinson can be seen in videos Cox posted on Facebook showing the two women marching through the streets of Washington, D.C. Footage shot by others also captures the two women as they make their way with the throng of protesters.
As she walks toward the Capitol, Atkinson is wearing a gray “Trump 2020” T-shirt over a long-sleeved black top. On her head is a backward blue baseball cap with “TRUMP” spelled out in silver sequins and “2020” in red ones. She holds a white phone in her outstretched hand and appears to be filming.
The social media videos from outside were posted during the Capitol riot, well before DeSantis issued his appointment proclamation two months later.
Other footage from inside the Capitol appears to show the same woman as in Cox’s earlier videos. Security footage released as part of a prosecution unrelated to Atkinson shows the woman in the same Trump shirt but minus her sequined hat, pushing into the Capitol with a mob of people. She’s still holding her phone.
Cox says her friend live-streamed from her phone throughout the day. Cox says she left the protest and went back to her hotel in Chinatown, but said Atkinson continued to the Capitol, later bragging about her role in the insurrection.
“She claims to have been in Pelosi’s office,” Cox said.
Cox added that she was interviewed in 2021 by the FBI about the activities of the North Florida GOP contingent on that day.
More than two years later, Atkinson is among more than 100 people who have been identified by online activists to federal authorities, but never charged.
Atkinson’s trip to Washington for the rally was also well known. She was one of the chief organizers of the local caravan to Washington. (In March 2021, when a man from Okaloosa County was arrested for entering the Capitol, Atkinson distanced herself from him, saying she didn’t know him and that he didn’t travel with her group.)
None of the footage reviewed by USA TODAY appears to show Atkinson hitting anyone or being destructive. But violence has not been a prerequisite for many of the Jan. 6 prosecutions.
A USA TODAY analysis of the more than 1,000 charges related to Jan. 6 found that hundreds of defendants have been charged with entering or remaining in the Capitol, even when they face no other major charges.
Many people have now been charged simply for entering the building, said Mary McCord, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
“There are people who got trespassing charges even if they didn’t do anything violent and just went inside,” McCord said. “If she went in with the mob, that was an unauthorized entry.”
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‘He knows who she is’
Even before Jan. 6, Atkinson had seen her political activism collide with law enforcement.
In 2020, she was arrested and charged with stealing the campaign signs of a political rival who she had run against in a Florida House race, in which she came fourth out of four candidates. According to court records, Atkinson entered a not-guilty plea to a larceny charge, entered a pretrial diversion program and paid $200 in court fees.
Atkinson also had crossed swords with her own party, drawing criticism when she claimed online that survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, were “crisis actors.”
Atkinson’s day job, though, was as a massage therapist.
Cox said Atkinson asked DeSantis to appoint her to the massage therapy board at an event where the governor spoke.
“I know, for a fact – I saw it – that she approached him about this in an uncomfortable situation when he was about to take the stage to talk to us as a group,” she said.
“He knows who she is,” Cox added.
In Florida, the governor’s board appointments are subject to state Senate approval.
DeSantis’ office repeatedly declined to answer questions from USA TODAY about what it knew about Atkinson, why he appointed her and why she later left the board.
Public records show the state Senate, which has the power to confirm or reject DeSantis’ board picks, took no action on her appointment in 2021. However, she continued to serve as a board member for months after the legislative session ended in spring 2021.
In 2022, the Senate again took no action on Atkinson’s appointment. It was not immediately clear why. Under Florida law, a board appointment ends when it isn’t considered by the Senate for two years of legislative sessions. That meant she most likely was barred from the board as of the last day of the session, March 14.
But first, she would attend one final board meeting.
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A short-lived stint on the state board
On March 9, 2022, less than a year after joining the massage therapy board at the invitation of DeSantis, Atkinson lashed out at Sujun Han, who was applying for a license.
“If she can’t understand or speak English, she shouldn’t be practicing massage. It’s ridiculous,” Atkinson burst out, as Han struggled to make herself understood to the board.
An audio recording of the meeting, posted to the board’s website, captures the exchange. When Atkinson’s colleagues chided her that there is no requirement to speak English to practice massage in the state of Florida, Atkinson doubled down:
“The law needs to be changed,” she said. “This is dangerous to the public.”
A month after Atkinson’s outburst, board chairman Christopher Brooks led a discussion about the incident, which he described as “alarming.”
“Ms. Atkinson made a comment that was viewed by myself and perhaps others of a discriminatory nature,” he said. “She made a comment that does not reflect the opinions of the board.”
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Atkinson was not present in the following month’s board meeting, and left the board some time between that meeting and late May. The Florida Department of Health, which oversees the board, did not provide an exact date.
In response to a public records act request from USA TODAY, the health department provided an email Atkinson sent on May 26, 2022, in regards to a computer she had been provided for her public work. She wrote, “I am no longer on the board so will you please send me an address so I can send this laptop back?”
Contributing: Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY.
