Prosecutors ask for 'Pink Hat Lady' charged in Capitol riots to be placed on electronic monitoring

Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to require a Mercer County woman charged in last year’s Capitol riots to wear electronic monitoring while under home confinement.

In a motion filed Thursday, the U.S. attorney’s office said Rachel Powell — who became known as “the Pink Hat Lady” — has violated the conditions of her release at least three times, including twice in recent months.

Powell faces eight counts in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol. Prosecutors said she attempted to push through a police line that afternoon and was seen fighting with police officers in video. She also used a battering ram to break a window in the building and shouted encouragement to other rioters, investigators said.

Under her release conditions, Powell is permitted to work during certain windows of time. However, in the motion, the government said she violated those by doing banking and visiting a brewery during work hours.

Powell, the motion said, lives on the property of Joseph Jenkins, who is both her boyfriend and employer. She works on the property adjacent to her residence that Jenkins owns, the government said.

A third party reported to Pretrial Services that they saw Powell at a local brewery at 5:30 p.m.

“When Pretrial Services confronted the defendant about her actions, the defendant admitted that she went to the brewery, saying she was there for lunch,” the motion said.

In another violation, the government said, Powell left her home early before her work window began. When she was asked about it, Powell said she was gardening and described it as a work duty.

“When the officer noted that gardening is not related to the construction job she was approved to do, the defendant told the officer that she does ‘whatever (Mr. Jenkins) tells her to do, and she gets paid for it,’” the motion said.

Powell went on to say that her employment also requires her do banking errands for Jenkins and host evening events.

“When Pretrial Services pushed back as to the defendant’s characterization of gardening as one of her job duties, the defendant conveniently obtained an expansive job description from her employer/boyfriend, which lists the defendant’s purported work requirements as broadly running errands, social events and traveling to retreats,” the motion said.

After Pretrial Services spoke to Powell, the government said, they received an unsolicited letter from Jenkins in which he described her job duties.

He also talked about Powell’s character and said he’d known her since May 2019.

“Accusations that she may be a threat to the community are laughable and false,” Jenkins wrote. “Consider the weight of the politically motivated criminal charges that she has been burdened with due to her participation in the Jan. 6 election fraud protests.”

The government said placing Powell on GPS monitoring is necessary to ensure she complies with her release conditions, especially given that she violated them just a week after the court admonished her.

“Although the court has taken the defendant’s release conditions seriously, the defendant has not,” the government wrote. “Given that the defendant cannot be trusted to comply with release conditions, the government requests GPS monitoring to ensure that the defendant is traveling to work-related locations during her work hours.”

Powell was held in custody for several days after her arrest but was granted bond on house arrest in February 2021. Within a couple months, the government accused her of violating her conditions of release when she mocked an order requiring her to wear a mask when out in public. She was shown in a social media video wearing a mesh face mask.

Powell had previously asked to have her conditions of release relaxed, but the judge denied it.

A status conference in the case is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon.