‘QAnon Shaman’ from Capitol riot hasn’t eaten in a week due to lack of organic food in jail, lawyer says
The man seen at the Capitol riot last month wearing face paint and a fur hat with horns hasn’t eaten anything in over a week because of the lack of organic food in the Washington, D.C., jail where he’s being held, his lawyer said Wednesday.
An attorney for Jacob Chansley, also known as Jake Angeli and the “QAnon Shaman,” filed an emergency motion in federal court asking a judge to order that he either be released or be given sustenance that conforms with his dietary needs.
According to the filing, Chansley practices shamanism, which forbids him from consuming non-organic food, and in the past week has lost 20 pounds while in jail.
“Based on Mr. Jacob Chansley’s shamanic belief system and way of life, non-organic food, which contains unnatural chemicals, would act as an ‘object intrusion’ onto his body and cause serious illness if he were to eat it,” attorney Albert Watkins wrote.
Watkins told the court that he has had no success persuading D.C. corrections officials to provide his client with organic food.
A spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Corrections did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
Images of Chansley sporting his outfit inside the Capitol went viral after last month’s riot.
His lawyers have argued that Chansley acted peacefully during the riot and that former President Trump deserves responsibility for spurring the crowd to storm the Capitol.
“In turn, the Governments appears, in the case of Defendant herein and other peaceful citizens in like position, to be in the unseemly position of having to prosecute folks for taking heed of the call of the former President, believing the former President’s words, and doing that which the former President asked to have done,” Watkins wrote in his motion on Wednesday.
Chansley pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, as well as obstruction of an official proceeding.
Watkins has said that Chansley is willing to testify in Trump’s impeachment trial, saying he feels he was “duped” by the former president.
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