Social media influencer from Long Island, Isabella DeLuca, charged in connection with Jan. 6 Capitol riot
Isabella DeLuca, of Setauket, appears outside the Supreme Court, Oct. 26, 2020. DeLuca, a conservative social media influencer, has been charged with storming the U.S. Capitol. Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin
A conservative social media influencer from Setauket has been arrested in connection with her role at the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot where she allegedly helped steal a table that resembled one later used to assault a law enforcement officer.
Isabella Maria DeLuca, 24, who has 125,000 followers on Instagram and 336,000 on X, was arrested Friday in Irvine, California, on five misdemeanor charges including theft of government property, entering a restricted building and disorderly conduct in the Capitol building.
Surveillance footage from the Capitol showed a woman matching DeLuca’s description inside the building and within restricted areas not open to the public, according to a federal complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Photos depict the woman passing a coffee table valued at $637.96 out a broken window to other rioters, according to the complaint. The table legs resemble those that were subsequently used as a weapon against police, the complaint states.
DeLuca was released without bail and is due back in court on March 26. She is represented by Samuel Owen Cross of the federal public defender's office in Santa Ana, California. He did not return a call seeking comment.
An account on the social media platform X in DeLuca’s name posted a message on Monday thanking her supporters and seeking donations for her legal defense.
“Thank you everyone for all the kind messages and the support. I appreciate it all,” the message read.
The FBI received a tip on Jan. 9, 2021, that DeLuca had deleted social media posts about being at the Capitol three days prior, according to the complaint. The FBI said it interviewed DeLuca on Jan. 21 and that she admitted she was in the city, but said she did not enter the Capitol building. The FBI also interviewed her mother, who gave a similar account.
The FBI obtained a search warrant for her Instagram account on July 13, 2022, and learned DeLuca messaged an acquaintance on the app shortly before 6 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2021, stating, “it’s insanity here” and “I got maced and had a sound bomb go off right next to me.”
On Jan. 14, 2021, DeLuca posted on social media acknowledging that she was there.
“I was there on Jan. 6. I have mixed feelings,” she allegedly wrote. “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.”
DeLuca previously volunteered in the office of former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley). A Zeldin representative on Tuesday confirmed that she held an unpaid role working for a staffer in a district office, but said the office had no knowledge she was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
DeLuca had worked as an unpaid volunteer for the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington, D.C., think tank focused on foreign relations, since May, according to its president, Eli M. Gold. The organization learned of DeLuca’s ties to the Capitol riot after receiving media requests this week and ended the relationship, Gold said in an email.
Vera Chinese covers Suffolk County government and politics. She joined Newsday in 2017 after working as an editor for the East End lifestyle publication northforker and a general assignment reporter for the New York Daily News.
