Rioter charged in Pelosi laptop theft gets 3 years
A Pennsylvania woman linked to a farright extremist movement was sentenced on Thursday to three years in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol, where she invaded thenHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office with other rioters.
Riley June Williams, 23, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was charged but not convicted of helping steal a laptop from Pelosi’s office suite during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
A federal jury convicted Williams in November of six charges, including a felony count of civil disorder, after a two-week trial. But it deadlocked on two other counts, including “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 filing.
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 an ardent supporter of the white nationalist “Groyper” movement led by internet personality Nick Fuentes, according to prosecutors. They said Williams was “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.