Riley Williams

The 22-year-old never had a strong feeling about politics before but she felt strongly that the election had been stolen. Riley wanted to hear first-hand evidence, and make her voice be heard, so she went to the rallies to support President Trump.  She is said to have gone to the protest with only her cellphone and a fuzzy zebra bag.

On that day, Riley made her way inside the Capital and stayed for a little over an hour.  Congressmen Clay Higgins has evidence that the FBI had over 200 Trump attired FBI agents inside the Capitol to lead folks like Riley to specific offices like Nancy Pelosi’s so the DNC could paint a narrative that Trump and all his supporters are “insurrectionists.”

While inside, prosecutors allege that Riley of “using men wearing helmets and body armor like a human battering ram, pushing them forward to break through police lines inside the Capitol, entering Pelosi’s main conference room, stealing her ceremonial gavel and encouraging another rioter to take a laptop from atop a table.” Riley is 5’3” and all of 120 pounds, so she could not physically have done something like that.  Riley did yell at officers while inside the rotunda, “F* you.  We’ll remember your f* face. You are a traitor.”

Riley was in Pelosi’s office when the Pelosi laptop disappeared, which has never been recovered.  Investigators searched Riley’s car and residence but did not locate the computer.  The FBI claimed that a former romantic partner of Riley’s tipped them off that she was the woman in the video and stated she had the laptop and was planning to sell it to Russia.  The FBI did have a video likely shot by Riley showing a man’s gloved hand lifting the laptop up.  To this day, it remains a mystery what actually happened to the laptop. It was confirmed by Pelosi staffer, Drew Hammill, that it was for “presentation purposes only.  Riley’s former boyfriend claimed to the FBI, “for unknown reasons, the plan (to sell it to Russia) fell through and that Riley still has the computer device or destroyed it.”

Outside the Capitol, Riley climbed on top of a tactical police vehicle but did no damage.

Riley was arrested at her home without incident on January 18, 2021, and arraigned a few days later.  The charges included; Civil Disorder, Obstruction of an Official Proceeding and Aiding and Abetting, Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers, Theft of Government Property and Aiding and Abetting, Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds, Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds, Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building, Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building.

The trial went on for two weeks.  This is unusual as most trials of the J6 protestors have been short and sweet, bench trials mostly, where a judge decides innocence and guilt. Riley opted for a trial and glad she did, otherwise it’s likely she would have been convicted on all charges.  After the dust settled, on November 21^st, 2021, she was found guilty on six of the eight charges, including a felony count of civil disorder. The jury deadlocked on two other counts, including “aiding and abetting” the laptop’s theft and obstructing an official proceeding.  This was the first time a jury has not convicted a J6th defendant on all counts. 

Federal Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson for a harsh sentence – seven years and three months in prison.  Her defense team asked for one year and one day.  Their reasoning was simple, “In some respects, Riley is starkly different from the average January 6th defendant – particularly given her youth and that she is a female.  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.”

Riley apologized before her sentencing, saying she’s embarrassed by the “young and stupid” person she sees in the videos.  She said she is now a “responsible young woman” and realized she had been “addicted to the internet.” 

Judge Jackson stated she had “no confidence whatsoever that Riley respected the rule of law.”  She sentenced Riley on Feb. 22, 2023, to three years. After serving her prison sentence, Riley will spend three years on supervised release and pay $2,000 in restitution.  And to add insult to injury, the old boyfriend who tried to pin the laptop theft on her, brought a ‘defamation of character’ law suit because she disparaged him for doing so.  He was awarded $50,000.  Obviously, she needs help paying her legal bills and the defamation suit, which she hopes gets overturned.