A Pennsylvania woman linked to a far-right extremist movement was sentenced on Thursday to three years in prison for storming the US Capitol, where she invaded then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office with other rioters. Riley June Williams, 23, of Harrisburg, was charged but not convicted of helping steal a laptop from Pelosi's office suite during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, the AP reports. 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 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 US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to sentence Williams to seven years, 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 court filing. Defense lawyers requested a term of imprisonment of one year and one day for Williams, who was 22 in January 2021, per the AP.
"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' supervised release after her prison term and ordered her to pay $2,000 in restitution, according to the US attorney's office for the District of Columbia. Approximately 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. More than 400 have been sentenced, with over half of them receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.
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