Woman who used bullhorn to direct Capitol rioters is convicted of felony charges
A Pennsylvania woman who used a bullhorn to direct rioters attacking the U.S. Capitol was convicted Tuesday of charges that she joined the mob attempting to keep Joe Biden’s election from being certified.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth heard testimony without a jury before he convicted Rachel Marie Powell of felony charges stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, siege. Powell, who was convicted of all nine counts in her indictment, is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 17, according to court records.
Powell, 41, of Sandy Lake, Pa., had waived her right to a jury trial. The judge convicted her of charges that she interfered with police and obstructed the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress certifying Biden’s 2020 electoral victory over then-President Trump.
Wearing a distinctive pink hat and fur-lined jacket hoodie, Powell joined a mob of rioters who confronted police officers at bicycle rack barriers on the west side of the Capitol. She used her back to push against the police line, prosecutors said.
A video captured Powell using a bullhorn to encourage other rioters to “coordinate together if you’re going to take this building.” She also gave them “very detailed instructions” about the layout of the Capitol, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.
At one point, Powell told rioters they had “another window to break.” She herself used an ice ax and a large pipe to break a window, according to prosecutors.
A Connecticut man who crushed an officer with a riot shield during the Capitol insurrection has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison.
Prosecutors asked Lamberth to jail Powell until her sentencing, but the judge agreed to let her remain free until the hearing.
A lawyer for Powell had no comment on the verdict.
Powell played a “leading role” during the riot, a prosecutor said at a February 2021 hearing.
“She is front and center in the incursion,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Elizabeth Aloi added, according to a transcript.
The Jan. 6 Report could be reprinted or recorded by any publisher. So when Macmillan Audio got the draft, the race unfolded with the precision of a heist film.
Powell was arrested nearly a month after the assault on the Capitol. FBI agents found several smashed cellphones as well as gun paraphernalia and weapons when they searched her home.
Powell and her ex-husband shared custody of six minor children in 2021. She left her children at home when she went to Washington to attend the so-called Stop the Steal rally, according to prosecutors.
Shortly before Powell’s arrest, the New Yorker magazine interviewed her for an article headlined, “A Pennsylvania Mother’s Path to Insurrection.”
“Listen, if somebody doesn’t help and direct people, then do more people die?” she asked her interviewer.
A Senate committee report says the FBI and Department of Homeland Security ignored ‘a massive amount of intelligence’ before the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Prosecutors said Powell “showed an inclination towards violence” before the Jan. 6 assault. She posted on Facebook in October 2020 that she agreed “with the possibility of civil war happening.”
“Unfortunately, the only way this is probably capable of being fixed is bloodshed because I’m not so sure our government can be fixed the political way anymore either,” she wrote.
Prosecutors also said Powell described her “surveillance” of an unidentified public official’s home in a November 2020 message to somebody who replied that they were “afraid to ask why” she was there.
More than 1,000 people have been charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot. About 100 of them have been convicted by juries or judges. More than 600 others have pleaded guilty.
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