WASHINGTON — A Pennsylvania girl related to a far-right extremist motion was once sentenced on Thursday to 3 years in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol, the place she invaded then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s workplace with different rioters.
Riley June Williams, 23, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was once charged however now not convicted of serving to thieve a laptop from Pelosi’s workplace suite right through the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
A federal jury convicted Williams in November of six fees, together with a prison depend of civil dysfunction, after a two-week trial. But it deadlocked on two different counts, together with “aiding and abetting” the laptop’s theft.
Jurors also deadlocked on a charge of obstructing an official proceeding, the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. Then-Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress evacuated the House and Senate chambers when rioters attacked the Capitol.
Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to sentence Williams to seven years and three months in prison.
“Everywhere she went, Williams acted as an accelerant, exacerbating the mayhem. Where others turned back, she pushed forward,” prosecutors wrote in a courtroom submitting.
Defense lawyers requested a term of imprisonment of one year and one day for Williams, who was 22 in January 2021.
“In some respects, she is starkly different from the average January 6th defendant – particularly given her youth and that she is a female,” they wrote. “In other ways she is similar to many of other January 6th defendants with no prior criminal record, that were caught up with the mob that day, acting on impulse and without thought to the consequences of their actions.”
Jackson also sentenced Williams to three years of supervised release after her prison term and ordered her to pay $2,000 in restitution, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.
Williams was once an ardent supporter of the white nationalist “Groyper” motion led through web character Nick Fuentes, in accordance to prosecutors. They mentioned Williams was once “obsessed” with Fuentes and fixated on baseless claims — amplified by Fuentes — that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Williams’ attorneys argued that her political beliefs shouldn’t be a factor in her sentencing. They said the First Amendment protects her interest in Fuentes and his “Groyper Army” of fans.
Fuentes has used his on-line platform to spew antisemitic and white supremacist rhetoric. In November, former President Trump dined at his Mar-a-Lago membership with Fuentes and the rapper previously referred to as Kanye West, who is referred to now as Ye.
Other Fuentes fans were charged with Jan. 6-related crimes, together with former UCLA scholar Christian Secor, who waved a flag related to Fuentes’ motion when he entered the Capitol. Secor was once sentenced ultimate yr to 3 years and 6 months in prison.
Williams wore a inexperienced “I’m with Groyper” T-shirt when she traveled to Washington, D.C., along with her father and his pals on Jan. 6. They attended Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally sooner than heading to the Capitol. Williams entered the construction during the Senate Wing Door two mins after different rioters breached the doorway.
Williams used males dressed in helmets and frame armor like a “human battering ram,” pushing them ahead to smash thru police traces throughout the Capitol, prosecutors mentioned. Entering Pelosi’s primary convention room, she stole a gavel and inspired any other rioter to take a laptop from atop a desk, in accordance to prosecutors.
“As the other rioter later manipulated the laptop and its cords, Williams filmed the theft that she had just commanded and encouraged, and further instructed the rioter, ‘Dude, put on gloves!’” prosecutors wrote.
Williams then went to the Rotunda, the place she shouted insults at police and steered different rioters to sign up for her in pushing in opposition to officials.
Williams spent more or less 90 mins in the Capitol. After leaving, she climbed at the roof of a parked police automotive.
Williams destroyed proof sooner than her arrest, deleting her social media accounts, resetting her iPhone and the use of tool to wipe her pc, in accordance to prosecutors.
Williams bragged on-line that she stole Pelosi’s gavel, laptop and difficult drives and that she “gave the electronic devices, or attempted to give them, to unspecified Russian individuals,” prosecutors mentioned in a June 2022 courtroom submitting.
“To date, neither the laptop nor the gavel has been recovered,” they added.
A witness described as a former romantic spouse of Williams informed the FBI that she meant to ship the stolen laptop or laborious force to a chum in Russia who deliberate to promote it to Russia’s overseas intelligence carrier. But the witness mentioned Williams saved the software or destroyed it when the switch fell thru, in accordance to the FBI.
When the FBI puzzled her, Williams denied stealing the laptop. She accused an ex-boyfriend of fabricating the allegation.
Williams was once taken into custody after the jury convicted her on Nov. 21.
Approximately 1,000 other people were charged with federal crimes connected to the Capitol insurrection. More than 400 were sentenced, with over part of them receiving phrases of imprisonment starting from seven days to 10 years.
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