A Pennsylvania mother of eight, fleeing the authorities for her role in the Capitol riot, was arrested by the FBI, according to federal prosecutors.
Rachel Marie Powell of Sandy Lake, Pennsylvania, “is in custody,” Margaret Philbin, a Pittsburgh prosecutor’s spokesman, told the Daily Beast.
Powell, 40, was arrested Thursday night in New Castle, according to Philbin. She could not be reached immediately for comment and does not yet have a lawyer listed in the court records.
The cheese and yogurt supplier – nicknamed “the megaphone lady” after a video of Powell appeared to be shouting orders through a megaphone during the January 6 looting of the Capitol – apparently was not at home when the FBI broke into her home in Thursday afternoon. Neighbors told local reporters that Powell and his family lived there for several years, but most maintained privacy.
According to a complaint filed on Friday in federal court, Powell faces charges of obstruction, depredation of government property, entering a restricted building with a dangerous weapon and violent entry / disorderly conduct. She was scheduled to appear before a judge at 3 pm
The lawsuit says Powell used a pipe to break a Capitol window, causing more than $ 1,000 in damage. An anonymous informant revealed Powell to the FBI, he explains, and gave agents the link to Powell’s Facebook profile. There, agents were able to compare Powell’s photos using a distinctive set of earmuffs with those she was seen wearing on Capitol Hill.
After being seen on video during the January 6 rebellion with a pink hat and sunglasses, Powell earned her signature nickname, although she was also known as “Lady in the Pink Hat”.
“People should probably coordinate if you are going to take this building,” Powell shouted through a broken window at a group of insurrectionists inside the Capitol. “We have another window to break to facilitate entry and exit.”
Powell, who became the subject of his own FBI Wanted poster, agreed to an interview with Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker before being accused.
Originally from Anaheim, California, Powell told Farrow that she acted spontaneously on January 6 and “was not part of a plot”.
“I have no military background … I am a mother with eight children,” she said. “That’s it. I work. And I garden. And raise chickens. And sell cheese at an open market … Listen, if someone doesn’t help and direct people, more people die? That’s all I’m going to say about it. I can’t say any more. I need to speak to a lawyer. “
Powell apparently went radical during the past year or so: when she wasn’t taking a table at local producers’s markets, Powell used Facebook to post on topics like yoga and organic foods. However, she recently began to express increasingly extreme political views that included several conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and unfounded doubts about the validity of the 2020 presidential election.
“It is not for [sic] too late to wake up, say no and restore liberties, ”she wrote on Facebook last May.
Powell was reportedly influenced by Infowars founder Alex Jones, who claimed that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a scam, and by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who made numerous false claims while working as a personal lawyer for Donald Trump.
Deborah Lemons, Powell’s mother, told Farrow that Powell was kept at gunpoint during a car theft when she was a child. She said she “amazed” her daughter – with whom Lemons has had a strained relationship in recent years – to participate in the Capitol riot for having been on the wrong side of violence in the past.
“She knows very well what it is like to ask yourself if you’re going to lose your life,” said Lemons.