A federal judge denied a motion from a Mercer County woman to dismiss one of the charges she is facing for allegedly participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., and denied her request to lift the curfew and location monitoring provisions of her pretrial release.

Judge Royce Lamberth of U.S. District Court in Washington recently denied the motions filed by Rachel Powell, 41, of Sandy Lake, known as the “pink hat lady” for the brightly colored hat she wore when she allegedly tried to smash a window at the Capitol.

In the latest motion filed May 4 by her attorney Nicholas D. Smith, Powell sought dismissal of count one of the eight-count indictment filed against her following the riot.

The charge — obstruction of an official proceeding — should be dismissed because the proceeding in question did not involved an investigation or evidence, Smith argued in the motion.

For this reason, it was not actually a proceeding, Smith said.

The proceeding in question was the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress that was called to certify the Electoral College vote.

“For over a century before January 6, no court had found the existence of a proceeding under Chapter 73 — titled “Obstruction of Justice” — that did not involve an investigation or evidence,“ according to the motion.

In a second argument, the charge should be dismissed because Powell’s conduct on Jan. 6 is not connected to the “integrity or availability of evidence in a proceeding.”

In its counter argument, the U.S. Attorney’s office said the court has ruled in previous cases that congressional certification of the Electoral College vote is an official proceeding, and Powell’s motion makes no persuasive reason to deviate from that finding.

In response to the second argument, the U.S. Attorney’s office said the law against obstructive conduct does not require a link to documented evidence, and the court has denied similar claims by other Jan. 6 defendants.

“As the court explained before, and as every court in this district to address the issue has found, the vote certification was an official proceeding,” Lamberth wrote in his decision.

Lamberth said there is no support for the second argument.

The judge also denied an earlier petition from Powell asking for the location monitoring and curfew to be removed from the order granting her release from custody until her trial.

When she was released from pretrial custody in February 2021, Powell, a mother of six, was placed in home detention and ordered to submit to location monitoring and a curfew.

She argued that the residence she rented on her employer’s property after selling her house to raise money for her defense is not large enough to accommodate three of her teenage sons, who live together in a nearby efficiency dwelling.

Powell can’t enter the efficiency after 6 p.m. because the equipment that supports her GPS location monitoring ankle bracelet can’t be installed there, she said.

Home detention has prevented her from driving her kids to extracurricular activities at school and will force her to miss the marriage of an older child and the birth of a grandchild, she said.

The curfew limits her to work 40 hours a week, which is less than normal, and prevents her from attending business meetings and client calls, she said.

In opposing the petition, the U.S. Attorney’s office said her residence is not the same place she lived after she was arrested, and she moved there despite its alleged lack of space for all of her children.

The children’s primary residence is with their father, and her children visit her, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.