A federal judge on Monday wasted no time incarcerating Riley Williams, ordering U.S. Marshals to take into custody the Pennsylvania woman immediately after the jury handed down guilty verdicts in six of the eight charges in her January 6 Capitol riot trial.
Politico reports jurors convicted Williams, who was 22 on the day of the insurrection, on charges related to “participating in a civil disorder, impeding officers who tried to clear the Capitol Rotunda and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.”
“But the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on two of the central counts in the case: whether Williams ‘aided and abetted’ in the theft of a laptop from Pelosi’s office that the speaker used to make Zoom calls amid the Covid pandemic, and obstruction of Congress’ Jan. 6 proceeding — a felony that carries a 20-year maximum penalty.”
NBC News describes Williams as a “far-right extremist,” and reports she is “a devotee of Nick Fuentes and a far-right, white nationalist movement she is affiliated with called the ‘Groypers.'” Fuentes has been described as a Christian nationalist, white nationalist, and “white supremacist leader and organizer.”
Williams, The Washington Post reported last week, “was among a mob of supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the building while Congress was meeting to confirm Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election, according to prosecutors. She is charged with eight crimes, including aiding and abetting the theft of a laptop that Pelosi (D-Calif.) used to conduct video conferences with U.S. and foreign officials.”
During the trial, “jurors were shown video of Williams exhorting rioters to push past security lines of police and climb stairs to the House speaker’s suite of offices. In his closing argument Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel Dalke described Williams as a zealous instigator who helped ‘weaponize’ a seemingly rudderless crowd.”
Dalke also told jurors that the “danger of the mob is in the numbers, in the crush of people in that chaos.”
“And the danger is so much worse when someone … is focusing the power of that mob. Everywhere the defendant went on January 6th, she dialed up the chaos.”
CBS News Congressional Correspondent Scott MacFarlane, who’s been extensively covering the January 6 trials, reports: “Judge orders Riley Williams go directly to jail. She’ll be in US Marshals custody until her February sentencing. Her defense attorney tells me it’s a surprise to Williams.”
“Williams,” MacFarlane adds, “who’d successfully secured court permission to travel to multiple ‘Renaissance fairs’ pending trial & had brought pink purse to court, goes to jail. A man who was sitting in courtroom for her trial carried her purse outside. Her defense says ruling was shock to them.”
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