Dallas woman pleads guilty to assaulting federal court security officer
Dallas TX March 17, 2022 Serafina Liccardi, a 53-year-old unemployed street preacher who dresses up as a medieval angel, did not take kindly to the suggestion that she put on a mask when she entered the federal courthouse in Dallas, court records show.
The Dallas woman, whose social media posts indicate she doesn’t believe in vaccines, breached security at the downtown courthouse during the November 2021 incident and then hit a security officer in the face, prosecutors said.
“She made it very known that she did not want to comply with the mask mandate,” a federal official said during a court hearing.
Late last week, Liccardi filed court papers agreeing to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of assaulting a federal officer or employee. She faces up to a year in prison when sentenced, assuming a judge accepts her plea. Liccardi has been a regular at the federal courthouse in recent years to attend to lawsuits she’s filed without an attorney.
“Throughout the whole time, she was referring to anyone in the area as Nazis and Communists and that we were taking away her rights to be able to come to the Court,” Joseph Beranek, an inspector with the Federal Protective Service, told a judge during a detention hearing.
The judge ruled in December that Liccardi should remain in custody.
Mask-related assaults in the U.S. have skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly after mask mandates were imposed to try to stem surging infection and death rates. The Federal Aviation Administration, for example, has said three-quarters of unruly airplane passenger incidents stemmed from a refusal to obey mask mandates.
Published reports have documented the violent and scary actions of some anti-vaccine and anti-mask protestors, some of whom have confronted public officials outside their homes. “Pandemic rage” has resulted in numerous arrests across the country for assaults of store owners, restaurant employees, airline staff and others.
Liccardi had on Nov. 29 reportedly barged past the Earle Cabell federal courthouse’s security checkpoint and metal detectors, forcing two officers to pin her against a glass partition. Beranek said she then “violently threw her body” to break free and shoved a female officer before hitting her in the face.
He said Liccardi, who has a 2003 felony conviction for assault with an automobile, said she would “get us.” Liccardi also resisted arrest and scuffled with security officers, Beranek wrote in a criminal complaint.
