A Jan. 6 defendant who poured into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office with the crowd and assisted in devising plans for the mob to overcome police resistance was sentenced to 36 months in prison on Thursday, bringing a conclusion to one of the incident’s earliest and most unique sagas.
Riley Williams’ attorneys pleaded with U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson to view Riley Williams, a follower of white supremacist Nick Fuentes who is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and was 22 at the time of the incident, as an immature kid incapable of taking responsibility for her acts. But Jackson sharply rejected that effort, noting that Williams repeatedly and intentionally took steps to breach police lines and marshaled the mob to resist even further.
“She was not just a little waif blowing in the wind,” Jackson said, comparing Williams’ role in the mob to a “coxswain on a crew team.”