An Alaskan couple was ousted from bed and handcuffed Wednesday in the hunt for the laptop computer taken from Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the Jan. 6 incursion into the Capitol.
However, Marilyn Hueper of Homer, Alaska, said that although she and her husband attended the Washington, D.C., rally prior to the incursion, they never went in the Capitol itself, and that photos of a woman the FBI said was Hueper were clearly depicting someone else.
Paul and Marilyn Hueper recounted the story to KSRM-AM. The Huepers operate the Homer Inn & Spa in the community of Homer, which is southwest of Anchorage.
“Our bedroom is blacked out because that’s the way we sleep in Alaska,” Marilyn Hueper said. “They woke us up — we’re late risers. They actually told us that they had come by at 7 and knocked, but nobody responded. So they went to breakfast and then came back. And nobody knocked, so they broke the door open and then drew guns and came in and as Paul said, you know, called us out of our rooms and handcuffed us.”
Hueper said that guests who were staying there at the time were also rousted by the hubbub.
“So I think almost right off the bat, they said, ‘Well, you probably know why we’re here.’ Or something like that. It’s like, yeah, no, not really. And they said, ‘Well, we’re here for Nancy Pelosi’s laptop.’ And I said, ‘Oh,’” the inn owner recalled, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Paul Hueper said he was shown a picture he took of his wife near the steps of the Capitol, which he had posted on Instagram, and was asked if that was her.
“The next picture shown of the woman inside of the Capitol, and they are like ‘OK, is this your wife?’ I’m like, ‘No. She’s got hot sexy leather boots on, I kind of like those. Maybe, I’ll ask her if she can get me a pair.’ But, I’m like ‘No that’s not my wife,’” he told KSRM.
“And then they said ‘Are you sure?’ I’m like ‘Yeah, we didn’t even go inside the building.’ We were at most within a hundred yards of the front of the building. I mean we were in a sea of million people, so we’re far enough back. Then, I started to kind of understand what the process was that they were looking for, you know again the case of mistaken identity.”
Marilyn Hueper also said she was shown a photo of a woman of a similar age with a similar hairstyle wearing the same kind of coat she wore that day. But she said the woman wore a sweater unlike any she owned and that the woman in the photo had detached earlobes, which she does not.
“I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. Is that her? That’s clearly not me. Why did you not show me this to start with?’” Marilyn Hueper said, according to the Daily News.
This raid on the couple Marilyn and Paul Hueper in Alaska is really revealing. With the most advanced facial recognition software and the FBI makes that kind of "mistake"???? pic.twitter.com/hgZUax6Wy5
— Roscoe Davis (@RoscoeD70272312) May 1, 2021
After a four-hour search, the FBI and Capitol Police who conducted the search took laptops and cellphones, she said. Neither Hueper was charged with any crime, according to the inn owners.
The FBI admitted there was a search, but would not go into detail.
“I can confirm that on April 28, the FBI was conducting a court-authorized law enforcement activity at the location you described,” Chloe Martin, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Anchorage, said. “We just can’t discuss the details or existence of an investigation.”
Capitol Police likewise confirmed one of their officers participated in a search, but offered no further details.
Marilyn Hueper said she and her husband went to Washington for a vacation.
“We were just out vacationing, and there were cheap tickets to our vacation spot, so we decided hey, we’ve never been to a rally, let’s go to a rally. Let’s hear Trump speak,” she said.
“I still think it’s funny that they want to take me as someone who was actually there (at the Capitol), instead of lost, eating hot dogs at the other end of the Mall.”
