WASHINGTON (AP) — A Pennsylvania woman associated with a far-right extremist movement was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison for storming the Capitol, where she and other rioters took over the office of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. invaded.
Riley June Williams, 23, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was charged but not convicted of helping steal a laptop from Pelosi’s office suite during the January 6, 2021 riot.
A federal jury convicted Williams in November of six charges, including felony civil disorder, after a two-week trial. But it stalled on two other counts, including “complicity” in the theft of the laptop.
Jurors also deadlocked on charges of obstructing official proceedings, the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. Then-Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress cleared chambers of the House and Senate 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 accelerator, adding to the chaos. Where others turned, she penetrated,” the prosecutors wrote in a statement.
Defense attorneys sought a one-year-and-a-day prison sentence for Williams, who was 22 years old in January 2021.
“In some ways, she differs greatly from the average January 6 defendant — especially given her youth and the fact that she is a woman,” they wrote. “In other respects, she resembles many other January 6 defendants with no previous criminal record, who were overtaken by the mob that day, acting impulsively and without thinking about the consequences of their actions.”
Jackson also sentenced Williams to three years of supervised release after her jail 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 a staunch supporter of the white nationalist movement “Groyper” led by internet personality Nick Fuentes, prosecutors said. They said Williams was “obsessed” with Fuentes and fixated on baseless claims – reinforced by Fuentes – that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Williams’ lawyers argued that her political beliefs should not be a factor in her sentencing. They said the First Amendment protects its interests in Fuentes and his “Groyper Army” of followers.
Fuentes has used his online platform to spread anti-Semitic and white supremacist rhetoric. In November, former President Trump dined at his Mar-a-Lago club with Fuentes and the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who is now known as Ye.
Other Fuentes followers have been charged with crimes related to Jan. 6, including former UCLA student Christian Secor, who waved a flag related to Fuentes’ movement as he entered the Capitol. Secor was sentenced last year to three years and six months in prison.
Williams wore a green “I’m with Groyper” T-shirt when she traveled to Washington, DC with her father and his friends on Jan. 6. They attended Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before heading to the Capitol. Williams entered the building through the senate gull-wing door two minutes after other rioters broke through the entrance.
Williams used men in helmets and body armor like a “human battering ram,” pushing them forward to break through police lines at the Capitol, prosecutors said. Upon entering Pelosi’s main conference room, she stole a hammer and encouraged another rioter to grab a laptop from a table, prosecutors said.
“While the other rioter later manipulated the laptop and cords, Williams filmed the theft she had just ordered and encouraged, further instructing the rioter, ‘Dude, put on gloves!'” the prosecutors wrote.
Williams then went to the Rotunda, where she shouted insults at police and urged other rioters to join her in pushing against officers.
Williams spent about 90 minutes at the Capitol. After leaving, she climbed onto the roof of a parked police car.
Williams destroyed evidence before her arrest, deleted her social media accounts, reset her iPhone and used software to wipe her computer, prosecutors said.
Williams boasted online that she stole Pelosi’s gavel, laptop and hard drives and that she “gave, or attempted to give, the electronic devices to unspecified Russian individuals,” prosecutors said in a June 2022 lawsuit.
“To date, neither the laptop nor the gavel have been recovered,” they added.
A witness described as a former romantic partner of Williams told the FBI she planned to send the stolen laptop or hard drive to a friend in Russia who planned to sell it to Russia’s foreign intelligence agency. But the witness said Williams either kept the device or destroyed it when the transfer failed, the FBI said.
When questioned by the FBI, Williams denied stealing the laptop. She accused an ex-boyfriend of fabricating the accusation.
Williams was taken into custody after the jury convicted her on November 21.
About 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the uprising at the Capitol. More than 400 have been convicted, and more than half of them received prison terms ranging from seven days to ten years.
