PHOENIX (AP) – A judge on Wednesday ordered government agencies to provide organic food to an Arizona man accused of taking part in the uprising at the US Capitol while painting his face, no shirt and a hairy hat with do not wear horns.
The order came after a lawyer for accused Jacob Chansley complained that his client had gone without eating for the past nine days because organic food was not served in the Washington jail where he is being housed.
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Chansley has lost 20 pounds since being transferred from Arizona to Washington last week, his attorney, Albert Watkins, said. Chansley, who calls himself the ‘QAnon Shaman’, sees eating organic food as part of his ‘shamanistic belief system and way of life’, the lawyer said.
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Three weeks ago, when he was jailed in Arizona on charges following the January 6 riot, Chansley went days without eating because the detention facility there did not offer organic food. The U.S. Marshals Service in Arizona said it had taken appropriate action regarding Jacob Chansley’s dietary needs, but declined to say whether he received organic food.
When asked for organic food behind bars, he made a religious freedom argument, saying he had been following such a diet for eight years while practicing Shamanism.
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In an order issued Wednesday night, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said that correctional officers made religious exemptions for prisoners who are Muslims and Jews, and could not name a case when they refused such a request based on ‘ an alleged lack of religious merit.
Lamberth said that Chansley’s diet is based on his religious beliefs and that his willingness to go without food for more than a week is strong evidence of the sincerity of these beliefs.
Prosecutors say Chansley entered the Capitol with an American flag on a wooden pole covered with a spear, ignored an officer’s orders to leave, entered the Senate Hall and sent a threatening letter to the then Vice President Mike Pence wrote.
According to court documents, Chansley told investigators that he arrived at the Capitol on January 6 at the request of the president.
Chansley’s bid for organic food is not the first unusual request made by people charged in the riot.
Lawyers for Jenny Cudd, a florist and former mayoral candidate in the eastern city of Midland, Texas, have asked a judge for permission to take a four-day trip to the Caribbean coast of Mexico for a ‘work-related relationship’ with her colleagues and their spouses. They said the trip was prepaid and planned ahead of the riot in Capitol.
Cudd’s officer before trial services did not object to the trip and prosecutors do not take a position on it, defense attorney Farheena Siddiqui wrote in the court statement. The judge has yet to rule on her request. Her lawyers on Wednesday did not immediately respond to requests for comment. __ Associated Press writer Jake Bleiberg in Dallas contributed to this story.