By Ryan J. Reilly -
NBC News
WASHINGTON — A fashion designer was shopping for a needle for his sewing machine last weekend when his friend saw something on his cell phone that caught his eye.
What he discovered ended up being crucial to the FBI in one of its ongoing investigations into the Capitol Hill assault.
It was a tweet from the FBI office in Washington that showed two images of a person they identified as "number 537", on a web page where they shared photos of suspects in the January 6 riots in the nation's capital.
Number 537 on the FBI list was a woman in a white coat and black gloves, carrying a black Dolce & Gabbana bag, and who has been the subject of various conspiracy theories about January 6.
In one image, the woman stares into the camera with a raised eyebrow, as if she were the character Jim from the popular TV sitcom The
Office
.
In another she is seen standing near the Capitol, apparently wanting to lead the crowd with a stick.
On his head: a pink beret.
Photos of the woman in the pink beret on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021. Leila Register/Getty Images;
fbi
“I stopped dead in my tracks,” the designer, who asked not to be identified by name to avoid harassment and threats, said during an interview with NBC News.
"I said: That's Jenny!"
So he contacted the FBI.
He received a call from the agency on Monday, confirming that Jenny was being investigated.
On Friday, an agent confirmed to NBC News that they had identified the woman in the pink beret as the clothing designer's ex-girlfriend, Los Angeles resident Jennifer Inzuza Vargas.
NBC News has tried to reach Vargas for comment but has not received a response.
The designer said he dated Vargas four years ago and was able to identify her for the FBI thanks to the popularity of the tweet.
Recent posts by the agency on Twitter have garnered between 10,000 and 20,000 views.
The tweet about the woman in the pink beret received more than 7.2 million impressions.
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The images the FBI shared do not show what the woman did at the Capitol, so many on Twitter have assumed she did nothing serious.
Some supporters of former President Donald Trump took advantage of that to try to discredit the FBI by accusing the agency of extremism and arguing that its budget should be cut.
The night he saw the photo, after contacting the FBI, the designer posted a message on his Twitter account.
“I dated this girl in 2019 LOL
,” he tweeted, attaching an old photo of Vargas, wearing a red ski hat.
After her tweet began to spread, she began receiving hate mail and worried that she might escalate.
So, she deleted the tweet.
Things were getting "too crazy," she explained to NBC.
For Seditionist Hunters, an online group dedicated to helping authorities track down those who participated in the assault on the Capitol, Vargas' nickname was #BoinaRosa (
#PinkBeret
, in English).
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The online amateur detective group had followed the woman's movements on January 6 and had apparently been everywhere.
She was featured in photos and videos taken when protesters broke through police barricades near the Peace Monument.
There she was again on video, on the front lines of the attack, cheering on rioters as they smashed down a black fence so they could throw the pieces at officers.
She also appeared in photos and videos holding the door open for other assailants to enter the building, as well as entering the Capitol from another location.
The Seditionist Hunters said that they had tried to identify her by all possible means, but without luck.
But their search ended last weekend when they saw the clothing designer's tweet.
So they ran a facial recognition check with an online app and found that it was a match.
They searched for more photos and found plenty of material that seemed to confirm her identity, including a post in which she sold a used Dolce & Gabbana bag that resembled the one the woman in the photo had brought to Capitol Hill.
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The clothing designer, who resides in Los Angeles, met Vargas, who is from Sacramento, online and they hit it off “very well” in late 2018. In early 2019, when they were in their early 20s, Vargas moved in. to the Angels.
“We weren't trying to get married or anything,” she said.
"We were dating for a few months."
Towards the end of those months, the designer said, Vargas posted on his Discord account that he was reading Hitler's 1925 manifesto.
They had a discussion about it that revealed more of Vargas' character, the man said.
“I instantly disliked him.
I thought, 'I don't think this is going to work,'” she said.
"You are reading
Mein Kampf
and you think that immigrants do not deserve X, Y, Z."
(One of the social media accounts linked to Vargas, which was seen by NBC News, also references Hitler.)
Hundreds of people try to break into the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, as Congress was set to confirm Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election.Bloomberg via Getty Images
After their relationship fell through, Vargas stayed in Los Angeles, the designer said.
They kept in touch, occasionally exchanging messages even though their opinions diverged.
“He really likes politics and I don't know anything beyond the fact that Trump lost,” the designer said.
But he knew that she had been in Washington on January 6, and he did some digging.
He even asked her in a message a few days after the attack if she was on the authorities' no-fly list.
“No, because I didn't go into the [Capitol],” she replied, despite extensive video evidence later seen by NBC News that appears to show her inside the building.
“But you still crossed state lines to cause a riot,” he replied.
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“I was there to support the president.
Not to participate in that riot.
I support the police,” Vargas replied.
Kira West, a lawyer for Darrell Neely, who was accused of having participated in the assault on the Capitol, had criticized the government for not having identified the woman in the pink beret.
A video appears to show the two holding hands inside the Capitol.
West wrote in a memo this year that it was "hard to believe the government doesn't know who she is and even harder to understand why she hasn't been charged with crimes like everyone else."
West, in a motion filed in February, wrote that “Neely's entrance into the Capitol was led by
Pink Beret
.
Neely needs to know who she is and why she was there.
He also needs to understand if he was selected by her that day and for what purpose.
The woman in the pink beret was "central to Neely's defense," and the court should allow "robust cross-examination of government witnesses about
Pink Beret
, her possible connection to police, and her role in the events of January 6." of 2021,” West wrote.
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The Government has tried to prevent the judge from allowing Neely's defense to try to implicate the woman
with the police without presenting evidence of this, explaining that "the Government is not aware of any evidence to support that claim."
With hundreds of cases on hold, months and even years have passed between the time the riot participants were identified and when they were arrested.
But since Neely's trial is scheduled to begin on May 22, the government may need to present the new evidence it collected last weekend about Vargas' identity in an expedited manner.
When asked this week about her ex-boyfriend's identification of the woman in the pink beret, West said she had been seeking answers from the FBI for months.
"The FBI is late," West told NBC News.
“I have no idea if she has a connection to [law enforcement].
They don't tell us."
Supporters of former President Donald Trump struggle with the Capitol Police on the day of the violent insurrection on January 6, 2021. John Minchillo / AP
Vargas is not the first person linked to January 6 to be turned over to authorities by a former romantic partner.
Richard Michetti was sued by her ex-partner after he called her a "jerk" because she didn't believe Trump's lies about fake 2020 voter fraud. Last year, he was sentenced to nine months in federal prison.
The clothing designer who identified the woman in the pink noina said he thinks it's important to get to the bottom of things and find out if Vargas collaborated with any extremists on Jan. 6.
But he said his "heart ached" for her.
“She is clearly a missing person,” he said, but added that there must be accountability for the people who stormed the Capitol.