PITTSBURGH — The Mercer County woman who became known as “pink hat lady” and used a bullhorn to give instructions during the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol will spend nearly five years in federal prison for her role in the riots and breaching of the Capitol, a judge ruled Tuesday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., had asked for eight years for Rachel Marie Powell, citing her “utter lack of remorse” in the years since the riot and her arrest on Feb. 5, 2021.
Powell’s own attorney, who wrote in a sentencing memorandum that Powell was indeed remorseful for her “exceptionally poor decision,” had asked for no prison time for his client, instead pushing for a three-year term of probation, two-year’s worth of house arrest and 200 hours of community service.
Powell was sentenced to 57 months in prison plus three years of supervised release. Court records show Powell must surrender herself to the Federal Bureau of Prisons by Jan. 5.
Late Monday night, Powell, a prolific social media user, asked for prayers on X, previously known as Twitter.
“At 12:30 I’ll be sentenced,” she wrote. “I’m trying to have hope but my heart is breaking right now.”
Video from the melee showed the mother of eight in a distinct pink hat joining a mob that was pushing against bike rack barriers authorities were using to keep the crowd at bay. Later, she climbed through a broken window into the Capitol.
After she emerged, footage captured her shouting through a bullhorn for other rioters to “coordinate together” if they wanted to “take this building.” She relayed detailed instructions about the layout of the room she’d seen, including the glass floor that could be broken to gain further access to the building.
The footage and photos from the scene earned Powell the monikers “pink hat lady” and “bullhorn lady.” She’d gone armed with an ice ax that she used to try to break a window before switching to a large pipe alongside other rioters.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth found Powell guilty of all nine charges against her during a two-day bench trial in July.
While she initially bragged about her role in the riots on social media – “It was (expletive) war to get in,” she wrote Jan. 7 – she has tried to paint herself as a victim since her Feb. 5, 2021, prosecutors said.
“It would have stayed peaceful if it wasn’t for police,” she said in an Aug. 17 post on X. She claimed she and others were a victim of police brutality and they’d been attacked while on a public sidewalk.
“Powell is free to cast herself as a victim and refuse to accept responsibility for her actions on Jan. 6,” prosecutors wrote. “But the fact that Powell sees nothing wrong with engaging in criminal conduct in pursuit of her political goals should give this court concern that she will continue to do so unless she is deterred by a significant sentence.”
On the contrary, Powell’s attorneys wrote, she is “remorseful for her outrageous conduct that day.”
Her defense attorney’s sentencing memo claimed her “harsh upbringing” – he likened it to “Oliver Twist” – led to disorders that “leave her susceptible to manipulation.” That includes, her attorneys wrote, “the sort that led her to the Capitol.”
The defense attorney’s sentencing memo included more than a dozen letters from friends and family attesting to Powell’s upstanding nature and love of her eight children.
“Rachel loves the opportunities and freedoms that America offers and is passionate about protecting them for the future of her children and grandchildren,” one friend and coworker wrote. “While she may have gotten swayed by others, I believe she went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 in the sincere belief that protest was a method to bring about change for the better. Rachel is definitely not a terrorist or insurrectionist; she and her children deserve compassion and leniency.”
Her 15-year-old son, Gabriel, wrote that he will have to take care of his two younger siblings if his mother goes to prison.
“Also, I will not be able to play any sports such as basketball and football because Rachel is the one that sets them all up,” he wrote. “Plus, Rachel would be missing out on many of her grandchildren’s birthdays and her own children’s birthdays.”
In the weeks between the 2020 election and Jan. 6, Powell posted repeated false claims of election fraud on social media, including one post that encouraged others to “actively do something.” When she attended a D.C. protest in mid-November, she was armed with “a little beater bar all weekend and wasp spray and knives,” she said in a Facebook exchange.
She also said she’d done “surveillance on an officials home (sic)” and said that “it’s time to take protests to their doors.”
In finding Powell guilty, Judge Lamberth noted that Powell’s social media messages and comments were becoming “more aggressive and violent.”
Among her comments: “Letters aren’t working;” “what everyone should do … is just defy the government;” and, on Jan. 6, “we have been patient … time is up.”
The judge wrote that it was “abundantly clear … that she understood her actions would disrupt the Electoral College certification proceedings going on inside the Capitol on Jan. 6.”
While federal agents searched for her in the weeks after the riots, Powell gave in an interview to The New Yorker regarding her actions at the Capitol, saying in an interview: “Listen, if somebody doesn’t help and direct people, then do more people die?” and “That’s all I’m going to say about that. I can’t say anymore. I need to talk to an attorney.”
She was arrested three days later. Federal agents found a go-bag in her car containing a tarp, zip ties and two loaded magazines for an AK-47. They found two other go-bags in her home. One contained ammo, rope and duct tape, and the other contained throwing stars, knives and lighters.
A fundraising effort asks for support for “an American Patriot under attack.” As of Tuesday, the effort had raised $14,461 of a $50,000 goal. The most recent donation came about 3:30 p.m. the day of her sentencing.
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