LONG ISLAND, NY — Isabella Deluca, a conservative social media influencer from Setauket arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol, has raised around $19,000 to fight the federal charges.
Deluca is accused of helping pass a table out of a window for rioters to use against the police, a complaint and arrest warrant filed by a federal agent shows.
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She was arrested last Friday in Irvine, CA, on misdemeanor charges “related to her conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, and has a last known address in Setauket,” a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office said Wednesday.
She was released on her own recognizance, court documents show.
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Her LinkedIn account appears to indicate she lives in East Setauket and was a student at New York University at the time of the insurrection. Her Facebook page says that she now lives in Washington, D.C., and serves as the outreach director for Republicans for National Renewal.
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It also says that she is a political science student at Stony Brook University, but a spokeswoman for the university said that she attended from the Fall 2020 to Fall 2022, and graduated in December 2022 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science.
She started work as a volunteer media associate for The Gold Institute for International Strategy in May 2023, updating the online social media profile of GIIS, by posting appropriate information at websites known to be, or plausibly thought to be, useful for GIIS to start, maintain or grow a media presence, the company’s president, Eli M. Gold told Patch.
“It was not until we received email media requests of March 18, 2024, that we learned that Miss Deluca had been present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and was facing criminal charges for her alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot,” Gold wrote in an email.
“Following further internal investigation, we felt it necessary to sever our relationship,” he said.
Deluca’s profile on the institute’s website, which is since removed, said she served as an ambassador for the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, The Associated Press reported.
She interned for former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Republican who supported former president Donald Trump, the outlet reported.
A representative for Zeldin said she held an unpaid position working for a staffer in a district office, but said the office had no knowledge that was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Newsday reported.
Patch has reached out to Zeldin for comment.
Deluca has around 126,000 followers on Instagram and 343,800 followers on X.
She addressed her arrest in a post on X Tuesday.
“As many of you already know, I am facing the unwarranted and targeted persecution by the DOJ and FBI at the direction of the Biden administration like many J6ers. To say it’s a shock is the understatement of the century.
Being handcuffed and shackled isn’t something I ever thought I would experience.”
“Yet, through it all I remain and will remain steadfast in my convictions,” she wrote. “This experience for me, has only served to shed light on the challenges conservative Americans, Christians, and Trump supporters face daily.”
She then goes on to say, whatever comes her way, “though it may be difficult,” she is prepared “to face it.”
“Together, we will get through this,” she continued.
“Thank you so much for the love and support,” she concluded. “Reading your messages has already gotten me through some difficult days.”
It was not immediately clear if Deluca has legal representation, though a Give Send Go account has been set up to help fund her legal defense.
“This GiveSendGo aims to raise money to cover legal fees, consultations, and associated costs, ensuring Isabella gets a fair chance to present her case,” the account states. “Thank you for your support, compassion, and generosity.”
So far, 341 people have donated a total of $19,440 toward its $55,000 goal.
One supporter wrote, “God bless, we are here for you.”
Yet another, told her she will fight the charges, adding, “These people are corrupted and targeting political dissidents – I’m sorry this is happening and I pray more people can help.”
And another wrote, “Her fight is our fight.”
On Wednesday morning, she posted Psalm 23, a reference to fighting her upcoming legal battle.
Patch has reached out to Deluca for comment.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation received an online tip identifying Deluca as a possible suspect in the riots, alleging she deleted social media posts about being at the U.S. Capitol on the day, so she was interviewed and admitted she was present, but claimed she never went inside the building, stated an agent who investigated her case.
Deluca explained she went to the Capitol with some friends, but they were separated from each other, according to the agent.
Her mother told the FBI she was there also, but that she did not go inside the building and that her live feed showed her standing outside, the agent stated.
Subpoenaed bank records show Deluca made several purchases in the Washington D.C. area between Jan. 5 and Jan. 8, 2021, including a $108 charge from Amtrak for a ticket from New York to Washington and a charge for $160.86 from the Kimpton Lorien Hotel in Alexandria, VA, according to the agent.
Records subpoenaed from the hotel show Deluca had been there, and other charges show she was a Dunkin and a CVS in Washington, D.C., the agent said.
Subscriber records from Instagram indicate her account, isabellamdeluca, show she messaged others when her train broke down in Baltimore, MD, writing, “My train isn’t working” and “I need a ride to dc,” and later messages show she received a ride to her hotel.
In another post to Twitter, she wrote, “Fight back or let politicians steal and election? Fight back!”
Other posts detail how she was walking to meet someone at the Capitol, according to the document.
Video from U.S. Capitol Police CCTV surveillance footage and open-source video footage place a woman matching Deluca’s appearance inside and around the U.S. Capitol, according to the document. In all photographs and videos, she is wearing a brown jacket, black pants, white shoes, and at times is wearing a red, white, and blue neck gaiter partially covering her face, the document states.
Based on a review of video evidence, Deluca can be seen within the restricted area around the U.S. Capitol; recording video and/or taking photographs within the restricted area; entering Senate Terrace Room 2 Mezzanine through a broken window on the Lower West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol; and “removing, and aiding and abetting other rioters in removing, a table from the mezzanine and passing it to rioters outside through another broken window, the agent states.
This table was used to assault law enforcement officers guarding the Lower West Terrace Tunnel, known as “The Tunnel,” according to the agent.
The Tunnel was a temporary corridor entryway that led into the Capitol, and it was created as part of the construction of the inaugural platform, but after the police perimeter was breached on the West Plaza, many law enforcement officers retreated there to regroup, according to the agent.
Rioters streamed into the Tunnel in large numbers where and began to fight the police so that they could get inside the Capitol but a group of officers used their bodies to barricade the entrance that constituted the only barrier between the rioters in the Tunnel and the entry, the agent wrote.
Around 4:24 p.m. that afternoon, surveillance footage captured Deluca within the restricted area on the temporary inaugural platform constructed on the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol, and she appeared to cover her face from tear gas blowing in the wind, staying there several minutes before using her cell phone, according to the agent.
Deluca continued to go down the inaugural platform and around 4:30 p.m., she arrived in an area near the Tunnel where she could be seen using her cell phone to record video and/or take photographs outside of a restricted, unoccupied suite of conference rooms available for members of Congress and their staffs, the agent said.
Deluca continued to record video and/or take photographs outside of the room, witnessing rioters inside the room steal pieces of furniture, including a lamp and a chair, and passing them to the rioters outside and then went inside through one of the lower windows that had been broken by rioters, according to the agent.
Around 90 seconds after going inside the room, Deluca passed, and helped other rioters in passing, a table out of one of the broken windows, then appeared to use her cell phone to record video and/or take photographs of the scene, the agent stated.
At the same time, rioters passed the table in the direction of the Tunnel, where it was used “as a weapon” against law enforcement officers, according to the agent.
About two-and-a-half minutes after going inside, Deluca left the room through the same broken window through which she passed the table, and while doing that a rioter dressed in all black with a neck tattoo used a baseball bat to smash another window, the agent said.
Deluca witnessed “a chaotic scene with overturned and broken furniture thrown about the room haphazardly” and in a cell phone video can be seen standing on the ledge outside the room’s windows, the agent said.
At one point, Deluca appeared to be observing the chaos at the mouth of the Tunnel, including rioters passing a long wooden beam towards the mouth of the Tunnel, and several minutes after she left the room, another rioter, Timothy Desjardins, picked up a wooden table leg in front of the Tunnel and used it to assault law enforcement officers, the agent said.
Simultaneously, another rioter picked up a table, from the same location in front of the Tunnel, and threw it at the officers in the Tunnel, the agent says, adding that the table “bears a strong resemblance to the table that Deluca passed out of the window” because it shares “the same design on the apron” the though the legs were broken off “at some point in the melee.”
The table was worth around $637.96, according to the agent.
Later the same day, Deluca messaged an acquaintance on Instagram, writing, “It’s insanity here” and “I got maced and had a sound bomb go off right next to me,” according to the agent.
Over the next several days, she continued to post on social media about the riot at the U.S. Capitol, and on Jan. 7, 2021, an Instagram user messaged her wondering why she supported “the breaking into the capitol,” so Deluca responded, “According to the constitution it’s our house,” the agent said.
On Jan. 8, 2021, she commented on a post on Instagram, “I got maced pretty bad about three times, and on top of that it was extremely windy, so it was blowing everywhere. While I do believe some people were placed there to cause chaos, I don’t believe that people were faking being maced. Even if they were not directly hit, the wind was carrying it and affecting everyone,” according to the agent.
Several minutes later, she commented a second time saying, “I used milk to get the mace/tear gas out of my eyes. I’ve heard for some people holding onions near their eyes and nose can protect them from the tear gas. I’m not 100% sure tbh.”
On Jan. 14, 2021, she issued a lengthy statement on social media about Jan. 6, saying, “I was there on Jan. 6. I have mixed feelings. People went to the Capitol building because that’s Our House and that’s where we go to take our grievances. People feel, as do I that an election was stolen from them and it was allowed,” according to the agent.
On Jan. 15, 2021, in an Instagram message, Deluca suggested the former president, Donald Trump, should declare martial law and overturn the election, writing, “So it talks about how to save the election with all the fraud that’s happened. I can see from the notes that he suggests martial law.
If Trump declares martial law in 7 states, his campaign allies could take control of the state’s ballots & overturn the results of the election in Trump’s favor. Which would be ideal,” according to the agent.
Deluca also acknowledged deleting Instagram posts from her profile in the immediate aftermath of Jan 6 and on Jan. 9, 2021, an acquaintance messaged her on Instagram, saying, “Not sure if this is right but your profile shows only 9 posts,” so Deluca replied, “Yes I deleted a lot of my posts,” the agent said.
In a review of Deluca’s Instagram profile, there were no posts between Nov. 27, 2020, and Jan. 11, 2021, the agent said, adding, “Based on my knowledge, training, and experience, people who commit criminal acts will often delete information about those acts from social media accounts in an attempt to thwart any subsequent criminal investigation.”
In December 2023, employees of the apartment building where Deluca lives positively identified her in each of the six photographs from Jan. 6, according to the agent.
Deluca is accused of violating U.S. code, which makes it a crime to “embezzle, steal, purloin, or knowingly convert to her use or the use of another, or without authority, sell, convey or dispose of
any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof, or any property made or being made under contract for the United States or any department or agency thereof; or to aid and abet the commission of such offense,” the agent said.
Deluca is also accused of violating a code that makes it a crime to go inside or remain in any restricted building or grounds without permission and to intend to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of government business or official functions, engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct in, or within such proximity to, any restricted building or grounds when, or so that, such conduct, in fact, impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of government business or official functions,” according to the agent.
More than 1,000 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including over 270 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement.
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