Capitol rioter ‘QAnon Shaman’ moved from DC jail to Virginia for organic diet

The Capitol rioter known as the “QAnon Shaman” on Thursday was transferred to a Virginia jail a day after a federal judge ordered corrections officials to provide him with organic food. 

The Associated Press reported that Jacob Chansley was transferred to the Alexandria Detention Center following a judge’s ruling, which came hours after Chansley’s attorney said the 33-year-old had gone nine days without eating because there was no organic food served at the jail in Washington, D.C.

An emergency motion filed Wednesday morning by his lawyer, Albert Watkins, argued that Chansley, who also goes by Jake Angeli, practices shamanism and believes “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.” 

Watkins said Wednesday that Chansley had lost 20 pounds since being transferred from Arizona to D.C. last week, as he refused to eat the nonorganic food given to him. 

A Bureau of Prisons representative had told U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth at Wednesday’s hearing that Chansley’s dietary request had initially been denied because corrections officials could not verify if an all-organic diet was one of the tenets of shamanism.

Chansley’s image circulated widely on social media after he participated in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, with pictures showing him storming the halls and chambers of Congress while shirtless, wearing a fur hat with horns and red, white and blue face paint. 

Chansley now faces a series of federal charges in connection with the riot, including civil disorder, obstructing an official proceeding and violent entry and disorderly conduct at the Capitol. 

FBI officials were able to identify Chansley from his distinctive tattoos seen in photos from the riot, when he was also captured in images carrying a U.S. flag pole with a spear on the top. Authorities have also said that Chansley wrote a threatening note to then-Vice President Pence. 

Chansley is one of hundreds of people who participated in the Jan. 6 riot, in which supporters of then-President Trump stormed the Capitol to protest Congress’s vote to certify President Biden’s electoral victory. 

Five people died amid the chaos, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. Two officers who also responded to the rioting on Jan. 6 have since died by suicide.