Picture-Illustration: Curbed/Getty Photographs
On January 6, 2021, a gaggle of Realtors in Denton, Texas, boarded a personal jet to Washington, D.C. They took loads of selfies: on the jet, flashing peace indicators; on Pennsylvania Avenue with the dome of the Capitol Rotunda within the distance. When the riots began, they joined the mob contained in the Capitol constructing, in response to the FBI. One in all them, Jenna Ryan, took a break from the chaos to advertise her residential-realty enterprise in Frisco, Texas, as she livestreamed on Fb: “We’re going to fucking go in right here,” she mentioned on the high of the Capitol steps after breaching the road of police. “Life or dying, it doesn’t matter. Right here we go.” Then a fast commercial: “Y’all know who to rent on your Realtor. Jenna Ryan on your Realtor!”
A 12 months and a half and tons of of prison expenses by the Justice Division later, we now know that Realtors have been bizarrely properly represented on the Capitol that day: the passengers on Ryan’s aircraft and a whole cohort of brokers and brokers, industrial and residential, from the Gold Coast of Chicago to the artifical lakeshores of larger Disneyland, all rallying in help of our former real-estate-mogul president. Together with the far-right militia members and off-duty police, individuals who spend their days speaking sq. footage and arranging pastries on gleaming counter tops for staging photoshoots answered the decision to “cease the steal.” And at the same time as a few of them have been charged — and served their time — they continue to be largely lively within the trade with new listings in a white-hot nationwide market. One in all them is even working for governor.
Let’s test in with a couple of of them:
Jenna Ryan (Texas)
One of many “North Texas Realty Three,” as they’ve been dubbed by native media (although there have been greater than three), Ryan is probably the most well-known member of a gaggle of real-estate professionals who chartered a personal aircraft from Denton to the Capitol. On March 26, 2021, she tweeted, “Positively not going to jail. Sorry I’ve blonde hair white pores and skin an amazing job an amazing future and I’m not going to jail. Sorry to rain in your hater parade. I did nothing incorrect.” Days earlier than Christmas, she surrendered to a federal jail to serve a 60-day jail sentence on expenses of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol constructing, which led to February. Now she is again to promoting homes across the Dallas suburbs beneath the title First Place Actual Property. (An “elevator prepared” French-style chateau on a creek will set you again $3.8 million.) Ryan additionally posts on Twitter and TikTok about such subjects as find out how to “get thick pores and skin to insulate from haters,” and he or she as soon as claimed to have gotten a ebook deal, although she hasn’t talked about it since. On June 9, she posted a throwback to a category she taught in 2010 on find out how to turn into “well-known on-line.”
Ryan Kelley (Michigan)
Kelley was a western Michigan real-estate agent and county commissioner when he attended the Capitol riots, the place he was reportedly seen transferring a barricade, climbing scaffolding, and waving individuals into the constructing. Kelley had lively listings on his real-estate web site as not too long ago as Might, although it has since been dormant. He’s probably very busy since he’s now working as a Republican candidate in Michigan’s gubernatorial election. Actually, he was on the marketing campaign path when he was arrested by the FBI final week on expenses associated to the riots. “When you didn’t know my title a few days in the past, it now,” Kelley advised MLive days after his arrest. “So, there’s been an incredible quantity of publicity there, and we’ll see what occurs within the coming weeks with the case.” He faces both a fantastic of $100,000 or a 12 months in jail for 4 misdemeanors. (“There was no crime dedicated,” Kelley advised Tucker Carlson on June 13. “By no means entered the Capitol constructing.”) In 2019, a consumer of Kelley’s brokerage wrote of their Zillow assessment that Kelley had a “constructive perspective and dynamic power that makes you wish to be part of what he has occurring.”
Libby Andrews (Illinois)
Andrews, a Chicago-based real-estate dealer, posted images from the Capitol on January 6 however claimed to have been on the east facet of the constructing, away from the injury and violence happening. She reportedly posted a since-deleted picture of herself with the caption “After storming the capital a very good glass of champagne is required!” Andrews was fired by her employer, @Properties, on January 7, and he or she finally sued MSNBC for defamation after the information community included her picture and title in a broadcast with different rioters. (She has by no means been charged by the Justice Division.) She is seemingly nonetheless an lively agent with Gold Coast Properties and lists a studio in Chicago’s Trump Tower that’s been in the marketplace for 155 days. (The residence is described in her itemizing as “the intersection of cosmopolitan and luxurious.”)
Klete Keller (Colorado)
A former Olympic swimmer, Keller attended the riots in a Group USA jacket, which he destroyed after it turned infamous on social-media accounts. In 2020, Keller joined a Colorado Springs–primarily based agency and have become the primary real-estate skilled charged by the FBI on January 13, 2021. He pleaded responsible to a felony in September and faces as much as 20 years in federal jail (although the primary rioter sentenced on the identical cost received eight months). Keller’s profile is lively on his firm’s web site, the place he lists a automotive wash referred to as Grease Monkey (and a handful of empty heaps). His firm describes him as a “very arduous employee and very pushed,” although the brokerage the place Keller is listed as employed has taken a Yelp hit within the aftermath of the riot.
Matthew Montalvo (Florida)
Montalvo was arrested and charged in April for the 25 minutes he spent strolling across the Capitol constructing. As a dealer in Kissimmee, Florida, Montalvo focuses on trip properties in locations such because the Margaritaville resort and homes close to Disneyland on the aptly titled web site www.homesalesneardisney.com, which remains to be lively. (The FBI used this web site — which featured his telephone quantity and headshot — in its effort to confirm Montalvo’s identification after he was recorded on the riots.) This itemizing for $3.1 million within the deliberate Disney neighborhood of Celebration has a golf course and a pizza oven. His firm motto reads partially, “Be a very good employee, one who doesn’t must be ashamed.” Montalvo has to this point not commented publicly on the fees in opposition to him.
