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- Jacob Chansley, AKA the QAnon Shaman, has refused to eat while in a Washington, DC jail, according to his lawyer.
- Chansley says he only eats organic food because of his religious beliefs — and he isn’t getting any.
- The Washington, DC, jail system denied his request for an organic diet.
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The attorney representing Jacob Chansley, also known as the “QAnon Shaman,” said in a court filing Wednesday that he hasn’t eaten in a week and has lost 20 pounds while he refuses to consume non-organic food in a Washington, DC, jail.
“The Defendant has not been able to consume any food since the commencement of his stay in Washington, DC, being a period in excess of one week,” Chansley’s attorney, Albert Watkins. wrote, adding: “It is understood the Defendant has lost weight in excess of twenty pounds during the last week.”
Chansley, who also goes by Jake Angeli, was arrested after he participated in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
Donning war paint, a fur hat, and enormous horns, he stormed its halls and invaded Senate chambers, instantly elevating his status as an icon of the conspiracy theory QAnon movement, which contends that now-former President Donald Trump is fighting a “deep state” cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats.
Watkins argued in the new court filing that Chansley is a legitimate shaman, citing the Wikipedia page for “Shamanism” in a footnote.
He said that Chansley, as part of his religious beliefs, does not consume non-organic food. He asked the court to order the jail to provide him "life-sustaining sustenance for ingestion" or simply grant him release from jail ahead of his trial.
"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," Watkins wrote. "An 'object intrusion,' is the belief that disease originates outside the body from unhealthy objects coming into the body. In shamanic traditions, the body, mind, and soul are interconnected, and the well-being of all three are necessary for my client to be able to practice his faith."
The filing also includes an inmate request dated January 27 Chansley wrote to the Department of Columbia Department of Corrections asking for organic food. Chansley wrote that he's eaten only organic food for the past eight years, and hadn't eaten anything at all since January 25.
"I have strayed from my spiritual diet only a few times over the past 8 years with detrimental physical effects," Chansley wrote. "As a spiritual man I am willing to suffer for my beliefs, hold to my convictions, and [feel the] weight of their consequences."
Chansley got organic food in a previous jail
Chansley was arrested in Arizona on January 8 on several charges related to his participation in the Capitol riot, where a pro-Trump mob sought to stop Congress from counting the electoral votes that confirmed Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election. He's one of more than 230 people charged so far for their alleged involvement in the attack.
An Arizona judge denied Chansley bail, saying she had "no confidence" he'd voluntarily appear in court to stand trial for his role in the insurrection.
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
Ahead of Chansley's bail hearing, his mother told media outlets that he hadn't been eating in the Arizona jail because he'd only eat organic food. The judge ordered the Arizona jail to feed him organic food, as well as for him to be transferred to a jail in Washington, DC, ahead of his trial.
The DC jail hasn't acceded to Chansley's requests for an all-organic diet. In an email sent to Watkins, DC Department of Corrections General Counsel Eric Glover said the department's religious services staff were "unable to find any religious merit pertaining to organic food or diet for Shamanism practitioner." Glover also denied that Chansley had gone seven days without eating.
But Watkins, in his filing, blasted the Department of Corrections decision to deny Chansley organic food, and said it was a grave risk to his health.
"The DC DOC, while appropriately following its protocols and procedures, is clearly without capacity to simultaneously follow ts protocols and procedures, and traverse the temporal period required to do so, and still garner access to sustenance to feed the Defendant before his physical condition spirals reversibly into a medical abyss," Watkins wrote.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
A representative for the Washington, DC, Department of Corrections didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Chansley has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. And in the new filing, Watkins suggests former President Donald Trump, not Chansley, is to blame for the Capitol riot.
"The Government 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 also said in the filing that Chansley was "unique postured" to help federal prosecutors with their investigations into the insurrection, as well as help legislators with impeaching Trump.
In a brief filed later Wednesday, federal prosecutors argued against letting Chansley out of jail ahead of his trial.
"The defendant clearly defied the orders of law enforcement officers who were trying to restore order at the Capitol, and indeed escalated the chaos and danger those members of law enforcement," prosecutors wrote. "When faced with the decision whether or not to obey law enforcement, the defendant chose to defy them, and cannot be trusted to follow orders of this Court as a result."
