A Pennsylvania woman accused of encouraging the Jan. 6 theft of a laptop in one of outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s offices was found guilty of six of eight charges by a jury on Monday, including impeding police officers and participating in a civil disorder.
NEW: DOJ is asking for Riley Williams to be taken into custody immediately following her conviction on six counts.
— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) November 21, 2022
Riley Williams was captured on video prodding a fellow rioter to steal a laptop from the speaker’s conference room during the ransacking of the Capitol and was charged with eight counts. The jury reached the verdict on the six counts unanimously but was hung on a charge relating to aiding and abetting the theft of the laptop charge as well as an obstruction charge.
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“Dude, take the f***ing laptop,” Williams was heard shouting at a man in a conference room in the Pelosi suite, via the Washington Post. “Dude, put on gloves.”
Judge Amy Berman Jackson reported said she will declare a mistrial on the two counts on which the jury deadlocked, marking a rare setback for prosecutors in a Jan. 6 cheese Prosecutors could attempt to retry those charges.
Williams’s trial began on Nov. 8 in federal court. Prosecutors showed members of the jury an array of footage outlining her activities during the storming of the Capitol, including her encouraging rioters to charge into the speaker’s offices, according to the report.
Prosecutors pinned the blame on her for ratcheting up the chaos and weaponizing a largely directionless crowd.
“The danger of the mob is in the numbers, in the crush of people in that chaos,” Assistant US Attorney Samuel Dalke contended in his closing arguments last week, the Washington Post reported “And the danger is so much worse when someone … is focusing the power of that mob. Everywhere the defenders went on Jan. 6, she dialed up the chaos.”
Lori Ulrich, the public defense attorney for Williams, countered that she should not be held liable for the theft because the “laptop was gone either way.” He also underscored how aloof she was during the riot, pointing to a social media post in which she claimed she was “STORMING THE WHITE HOUSE” as she plowed through the Capitol building.
“That’s how turned around she was,” Ulrich explained, via NBC. “She initially thought she was entering the White House.”
Williams was 22 years old at the time of the riot and had arrived in Washington, DC, at the time with her father, but the two became separated before the riot ensued.
She faced charges for obstructing, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement officers, stealing government property, obstructing an official proceeding, and four misdemeanor charges related to disorderly conduct for entering the Capitol.
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Jurors began deliberating on the case last week. Over 900 people have faced charges over the Capitol riot, some 430 of which have pleaded guilty to different crimes, by the Associated Press.
Pelosi announced last week that she will not pursue another stint as the No. 1 House Democrat, capping off nearly two decades in the perch and ushering in a younger generation of Democratic leadership.
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