WASHINGTON — Federal charges were unsealed Monday against a conservative influencer and former congressional intern accused of participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Isabella Maria DeLuca, of D.C., faces the four standard misdemeanor counts used in more than 1,000 Jan. 6 cases as well as a fifth misdemeanor count of theft of government property.
According to charging documents, DeLuca can be seen climbing through a broken window into an unoccupied congressional office. Once inside, investigators say DeLuca assisted other rioters in passing a table out of the window. Investigators said the table was later used as a weapon against police – including one of the legs, which may have been used by another riot defendant, Timothy Desjardins, who faces felony charges of assault and civil disorder in connection with Jan. 6. Desjardins was sentenced last year to 18 years in prison on unrelated assault and firearms charges connected to a shooting at a Walgreens in Rhode Island.
Investigators say DeLuca posted multiple times about being at the riot, including acknowledging she was maced and saying she felt she was allowed to be there.
“I was there on Jan. 6. I have mixed feelings,” DeLuca wrote on social media a week after the riot. “People went to the Capitol building because that’s Our House and that’s where we go to take our grievances. People feel, as do I that an election was stolen from them at it was allowed.”
According to charging documents, after the riot, DeLuca also called for former President Donald Trump to declare martial law.
“If Trump declares martial law in 7 states, his campaign allies could take control of the state’s [sic] ballots and overturn the results of the election in Trump’s favor. Which would be ideal,” DeLuca wrote in an Instagram message on Jan. 15, 2021.
DeLuca, now a conservative social media influencer with more than 300,000 followers on X – formerly known as Twitter – was identified in a tip to the FBI as early as Jan. 9, 2021. According to charging documents, FBI agents interviewed both her and her mother on Jan. 21, 2021, during which both claimed she had not entered the building.
According to her profile at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, which as of Monday afternoon listed her as a media fellow, DeLuca was formerly an ambassador with the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA and worked as an intern for Republican Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ). The Gold Institute did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Court records show DeLuca was taken into custody Friday in Irvine, California. Her case was assigned to Magistrate Judge Robin M. Meriweather for an initial hearing in D.C.
In the three years since the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, more than 1,300 people have now been charged with crimes ranging from misdemeanor parading to seditious conspiracy. More than 900 have now pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial.