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Following a lengthy hearing in federal court in Washington, DC on Tuesday, the case of Riley June Williams – a 22-year-old Pennsylvania accused of stealing or assisting in stealing a laptop computer from the office of House of Commons Speaker Nancy Pelosi and selling it to Russia’s foreign intelligence services – is more confusing than ever.
According to a narrative compiled by the FBI, a “former romantic partner” of Williams called the agency and alleged that Williams had taken the laptop during the assault on the United States Capitol and “intended to do so. send the computing device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service. The FBI added that the informant said the sale failed for “unknown reasons” and that Williams still had the device or destroyed it. (Pelosi’s office confirmed that the laptop was missing, although one of its employees tweeted two days after the insurgency that it was “only used for presentations.”)
But during Tuesday’s hearing, the purpose of which was to set the terms of his house arrest, his defense attorney, Federal Public Defender AJ Kramer, argued that Williams’ house and car had been searched. and that she didn’t have the laptop.
“In the computer theft allegation, she is accused of aiding and abetting, not the theft itself,” Kramer said at the hearing. “In reality, [law enforcement] searched everywhere, and she does not have the computer. They searched the car and the house.
Following the hearing, Kramer told BuzzFeed News by phone that Williams denies all of the charges against her – from theft itself, including aiding or abetting theft, to allegations of attempted theft. sell to Russia – and alleged they were all lies are all invented by an ex who, as he said at the hearing, “swore revenge on Williams for various things.” Williams has filed for a restraining order against the ex, Kramer added.
Kramer added that he “thinks” Williams never had the laptop at all. The Justice Department declined to comment on this suggestion.
The FBI affidavit, however, includes screenshots of what appears to be Williams’ account on the social media platform Discord (which was one of the services used to organize the protests and insurgency of the January 6), writing: “I STOLE NANCY POLESI SHIT [sic]And “I DOMT CARE I TOOK NANCY POLESIS HARD DRIVES I don’t CARE KILL ME. The document also contains several screenshots and descriptions of videos taken during the insurgency, apparently showing Williams in the Capitol, pushing other rioters and apparently directing the crowd to Pelosi’s office.
Screenshots of a video informants told the FBI Williams that was broadcast live on his own social media account shows the hands of people grabbing laptops from a congressional desk. FBI agent writing the affidavit says the video appears to show Williams telling a man looking for the computer to “put on gloves” and the writing on the video says “they got the computer. portable”.
Lawsuit against Williams in United States District Court for the District of Columbia charges Williams on four counts, including aiding and abetting “other people, hijacking, stealing, stealing” government property over $ 6,000, plus charges of illegal entry and disorderly conduct Justice Department attorney Kelly Smith has made it clear that the government is still investigating Williams and that it is possible that she may face further charges in the future.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to say whether anyone else had been charged with the theft of Pelosi’s laptop or if he had recovered it.
The FBI statement of facts accuses Williams of trying to flee before his arrest, delete his social media accounts and change his phone number. Williams also encouraged others to remove insurgency-related posts, the Justice Department said. A day after the official issuance of her arrest warrant, however, Williams surrendered.
Judge Zia Faruqui was surprised that the government did not advocate the detention of Williams, as the allegations in the complaint against her were “quite shocking” and “read like AmericansReferring to the TV show about Russian spies in the United States during the Cold War.
Instead of requesting her detention, the Justice Department requested that Williams be placed under house arrest with an ankle monitor under the supervision of her mother, that she not be allowed to use any device with internet access.
Kelly Smith, the attorney representing the Department of Justice in the case, declined to explain in more detail why they were not seeking Williams’ detention, saying providing more details on the case could jeopardize the investigation from the government on Williams and the events of the January 6 Uprising.
Smith pushed for a complete internet ban, including smartphones and televisions, on Tuesday and demanded that Williams be given a flip phone to speak to his lawyer and receive mental health treatment.
“Our concern is that in the future the defendant will acquire new devices … which are easy to hide, and the harm that can be done can be done instantly in the cyber world,” Smith said during the hearing. “Yes, it is true that we have no evidence of what she did after her arrest, but she was aware of the scrutiny of the public media on her involvement during the period when she was suppressing her accounts and asked other people to delete his account. “
Kramer pushed back, saying Williams deleted his accounts before Jan.6 because his ex, the same one who Williams’ attorneys say had informed the FBI, was logging into his accounts and texting people.
“I don’t agree with the defense’s description of when and why it deleted the accounts,” Smith replied. The government recently acquired evidence that Williams on Jan. 10 ordered “one of his Discord associates to delete the posts, and those posts had to do with the Capitol Riots,” Smith said.
This evidence shows that Williams “is a motivated person who knows how to tell people to destroy documents,” she added.
Faruqui, after Kramer told him about Williams ‘allegations against his ex, said without further information about the government investigation, he may have to “strongly dismiss” the allegations of Williams’ ex, dismissing them as possibly made by someone “with an ax grinding.”
“I’ll pass… what you say and I believe these things,” the judge said to Smith, “but I believe Mr. Kramer does too. So I don’t have to wonder if there’s a megaphone pointed at her that prompts her to do bad things on the Internet, or a megaphone that she has too.
Finally, after two days, about four hours of back and forth and almost 30 minutes of informal meetings on whether Williams should be allowed to watch TV if he was connected to the internet, Faruqui ruled: Williams will stay at home. the arrest with an ankle monitor and monitoring of her mother, will undergo a mental health assessment and will not be allowed to use the internet unless it is a video call with her lawyer or mental health professional. She will be allowed to use a flip phone and watch TV, as long as she is not using the TV to communicate with anyone.
His next hearing will take place on March 25.
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