Pink hat lady from Mercer County to be released pending trial on Capitol riot charges

Federal prosecutors on Thursday showed a new video at a hearing of Rachel Powell attempting to push through a police line during the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

It was an attempt to convince the chief judge of the Washington, D.C., federal district court to hold her in custody pending trial.

The video, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Ann Aloi said, showed Powell fighting with the police and went against the assumption that the only violent act she engaged in that day was using a battering ram to break a window. Powell, 40, is from Sandy Lake, Mercer County.

Pittsburgh-based U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan granted a $10,000 unsecured bond for Powell following a detention hearing on Tuesday and ordered the woman be released to home detention with electronic monitoring.

Lenihan believed that those conditions could ensure Powell’s appearance at her court proceedings and also keep the public safe.

Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., appealed Lenihan’s decision, and U.S. Chief District Judge Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell heard argument Thursday afternoon.

She agreed with Lenihan’s ruling and again ordered Powell to be held on home detention with electronic monitoring.

Several factors weighed in favor of holding Powell pending trial, such as the nature of the charges against her and the volume of evidence — which includes video recordings and images of Powell wearing a distinctive pink hat that day as she wielded the pipe as a battering ram. But others weighed in favor of release, Howell said.

Those included that Powell has no criminal record, and that when she learned there were charges filed against her, she made arrangements to surrender herself.

Too, Howell said, the defendant is not charged with assaulting any individual person, but instead is accused of violently destroying property.

Aloi told the court that Powell helped direct those wielding the pipe, and that after making entry into the building, she returned and used a bullhorn to give instruction to those inside.

“Her plotting was methodical there,” the prosecutor said. “We see the defendant in a leading role. We certainly see her leading other rioters on that day. She is front and center in the incursion.”

Throughout the hearing, Howell questioned the defendant’s judgment in participating in the insurrection, but she did not agree with prosecutors that Powell was a leader during the attack.

“It’s not clear to me that’s correct,” the judge said. “It appears to me she might be a follower — a follower of the mob.”

Too, Howell struggled with the notion that federal prosecutors have not asked for detention for two members of the Proud Boys charged in the attack, especially given that they are alleged to have spoken openly about their plans online, raised money and wrote on a door inside the Capitol “Murder the media.”

“I look at that situation, and I am concerned about equitable treatment of all these defendants,” Howell said. “What makes her so different that she needs pre-trial detention rather than the Proud Boys?”

Aloi said she could not answer that question as she is not handling the other case.

Instead, she responded, “The government is deeply troubled by the erratic conduct of this defendant.”

Aloi told the court that Powell abandoned her eight children, who range in age from 4 to 23 — including five whom she home-schools — and was out of communication with their father from Jan. 30 until Feb. 4, when she turned herself in.

But defense attorney Michael Engle countered that Powell left the children with their father, and that if she intended to flee, she would not have hired him to help facilitate her surrender.

He said there was no evidence to suggest his client was a flight risk.

The judge noted, too, that if the defendant intended to evade law enforcement, it’s unlikely she would have given an interview to The New Yorker magazine in the days leading up to her arrest.

Howell made a point of noting that Powell was not wearing a mask to protect against covid-19 in any of the images taken from the Capitol that day.

Aloi told the court that Powell is adamantly opposed to Pennsylvania’s mask mandate.

“There’s nothing in this record at all that [suggests] this defendant is interested in following the rules,” the prosecutor said.

In granting Powell release, the judge said that she must abide by rules set for home detention with electronic monitoring, and that if she does leave her home, she must wear a protective mask covering her mouth and nose.