A conservative social media influencer has been charged with storming the U.S. Capitol and passing a stolen table from a broken window, allowing other rioters to use it as a weapon against police, according to court documents released Monday.
Isabella Maria DeLuca was arrested last Friday in Irvine, California, on misdemeanor charges including theft of government property, disorderly conduct and entering a restricted area.
DeLuca, who has more than 333,000 followers on the platform formerly known as Twitter, is a former conference intern who works as a media associate for The Gold Institute for International Strategy. DeLuca’s profile on the institute’s website says she was an ambassador for the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA.
DeLuca also interned for former U.S. Reps. Lee Zeldin of New York and Paul Gosar of Arizona, both Republicans who supported former President Donald Trump.
DeLuca, 24, of Setauket, New York, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Online court records do not list an attorney representing her.
During the Jan. 6 riot, DeLuca responded to a Twitter post by writing, “Fight back or let politicians steal and election? Fight back!”
Video footage showed her entering a series of meeting rooms in the Capitol through a broken window on the Lower West Terrace. She walked past a table out of the window and then climbed back out through the same window. According to an FBI agent’s statement, a table that another rioter threw at police was similar to the one DeLuca left out the window.
DeLuca posted about the riot for days after the Jan. 6 attack. When an Instagram user asked her why she was in favor of breaking into the Capitol, she replied, “Under the Constitution, it’s our house.”
A few days later, she posted on social media that she was at the Capitol on January 6 and had “mixed feelings.”
“People went to the Capitol because that is Our House and that is where we go to express our complaints. People, like me, feel like an election was stolen from them and allowed to happen,” she wrote.
When the FBI questioned her about two weeks after the attack on the Capitol, DeLuca denied entering the building on Jan. 6, the agent’s statement said.
More than 1,300 people have been charged with crimes related to the Capitol riot. More than 800 of them have been convicted, with roughly two-thirds receiving a prison sentence ranging from a few days to 22 years.