Conservative influencer charged in January 6 attack

A conservative social media influencer has been arrested on charges related to her involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, including allegations that she helped steal a table that the FBI says was used to attack officers. court documents.

The influencer, Isabella DeLuca, 24, was arrested Friday in Irvine, California, Orange County, on several charges, including theft of government property, entering a unauthorized building, disorderly conduct and demonstrating in a Capitol .

Ms. DeLuca participated in and livestreamed the riot, during which an angry mob attacked the Capitol and helped steal a table that was used as a weapon against law enforcement, according to a complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

After Ms. DeLuca “passed the table out the window,” she appeared to use her cell phone to record video or take photos of rioting. She later deleted several social media posts related to the attack in a likely “attempt to thwart any subsequent criminal investigation,” according to the complaint, which was prepared by an FBI agent.

Ms. DeLuca could not immediately be reached for comment Monday and court documents did not indicate whether she had an attorney. She is a registered Republican, according to public records. Ms. DeLuca was released on the day of her arrest, her mother, Gina DeLuca, said by phone Monday. She declined to comment on the charges or her daughter’s case.

According to the complaint, Ms. DeLuca first came to the attention of the FBI three days after the attack, when the agency received a tip that she had deleted social media posts related to her involvement in the riot. In an interview with the FBI on January 21, 2021, Ms. DeLuca admitted to being in the Capitol on January 6, but denied entering the building. Her mother confirmed the account to the agency and said she watched her daughter’s Instagram livestream from outside the Capitol, according to the complaint.

Subpoenaed bank records show that Ms. DeLuca traveled to Washington from New York City by train on January 5, 2021, and made a purchase at Dunkin’ Donuts, two miles from the Capitol, on the day of the riot, the FBI said.

Just before 3:00 PM on January 6, 2021, Ms. DeLuca wrote on social media: “Fight back or let politicians steal and elect? Fight back!” Soon after, she sent a private message to another user on Instagram confirming she was headed to the Capitol, the FBI said. Surveillance footage also placed her there, the agency said.

The footage showed Ms. DeLuca entering the Capitol through a broken window, where she and other rioters removed a table and passed it to others through another broken window, the FBI said. She continued to take photos as other rioters continued to steal furniture, including a lamp and chair, and pass it on to the rioters outside.

“The table legs broke off at some point during the fight,” the complaint said, and one was used by a rioter to attack a law enforcement officer. Another rioter appeared to use the table itself to attack law enforcement, the FBI said.

Just before 6 p.m., according to the complaint, Ms. DeLuca “messaged an acquaintance on Instagram with the following message: ‘It’s madness in here’ and ‘I got hurt and a sound bomb went off next to me.’” She stayed post about the attack on social media in the coming days.

“I was there on January 6. I have mixed feelings,” she wrote on Jan. 14, the FBI said. She added: “People went to the Capitol because that is Our House and that is where we go to express our grievances. People, like me, feel like an election was stolen from them and allowed to happen.”

Ms. DeLuca is among more than 1,200 people who have done so associated with the Jan. 6 attack, in which an angry mob, egged on by President Donald J. Trump’s lies about the theft of the 2020 election, tried to halt the certification of the results. Federal prosecutors have described the ongoing criminal investigation into that day’s events as the largest in the Justice Department’s history.

Sheelagh McNeill research contributed.