(CNN) Noor Salman, the wife of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, was arrested in the San Francisco area Monday. She faces federal charges that include obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting her husband's material support to ISIS.
Salman is expected to appear in court Tuesday in Oakland, according to Assistant US Attorney Abraham Simmons.
The federal charges were filed in the Middle District of Florida, according to a law enforcement official. The arrest was first reported by The New York Times.
Authorities believe Salman acted of her own free will and knowingly took steps to obstruct the investigation into the massacre, according to a law enforcement official.
The official said Salman's claims that she was coerced through her husband's abusive behavior did not stand up. Another official says the evidence will show that she was complicit and knew her husband was going to do something bad.
Her attorney said Salman had no prior knowledge that her husband would enter the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and commit the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
"Noor Salman had no foreknowledge nor could she predict what Omar Mateen intended to do that tragic night," said family attorney Linda Moreno of Tampa, Florida, in a statement.
"Noor has told her story of abuse at his hands. We believe it is misguided and wrong to prosecute her and that it dishonors the memories of the victims to punish an innocent person."
CNN's Dan Simon visited her family's home in Rodeo, California, for reaction and was told "no comment."
Orlando police chief: 'She could've prevented this'
"I am glad to see that Omar Mateen's wife has been charged with aiding her husband in the commission of the brutal attack on the Pulse nightclub," said Orlando Police Chief John Mina.
"There's no doubt in my mind, based on the information I knew and I received from the FBI over the past seven months, that she knew, that she aided and that she could have prevented this tragedy," he told CNN's Erin Burnett.
Salman, who married Mateen in 2011, came under increasing scrutiny as authorities investigated Mateen, who killed 49 people and injured more than 50 others when he opened fire at Pulse, a gay nightclub in June last year. The gunman was killed after barricading himself in a bathroom at the Orlando club.
A law enforcement official told CNN last year that authorities were looking into whether Salman should face charges.
Orlando shooter texted wife during attack, source says
What she said
Salman gave conflicting accounts about what she knew of Mateen's intentions in the hours before the attack, authorities said. Salman told the FBI her husband said he wanted to carry out a jihadist attack. But she denied knowledge of his plans, a law enforcement official told CNN last year.
Months before the attack, Mateen added the name of his wife to his life insurance policy and made sure she had access to his bank accounts, two law enforcement officials said. The gunman transferred his share of the home, in which his sister and brother-in-law lived, to them for just $10. Mateen also bought his wife an expensive piece of jewelry, the sources said.
Salman told investigators that in the weeks leading up to the attack, Mateen spent thousands of dollars, buying among other things the guns used in the massacre. In April, he visited Disney World with his wife, and Disney security officials believe he was conducting surveillance, a law enforcement official told CNN.
Worst mass shootings in the United States
Parents wait for news after a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday, February 14.
At least 17 people were killed at the school, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said. The suspect, 19-year-old former student Nikolas Cruz, is in custody, the sheriff said. The sheriff said he was expelled for unspecified disciplinary reasons.
Investigators at the scene of a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, November 5, 2017.
A man opened fire inside the small community church, killing at least 25 people and an unborn child. The gunman, 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, was found dead in his vehicle. He was shot in the leg and torso by an armed citizen, and he had a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, authorities said.
A couple huddles after shots rang out at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip on Sunday, October 1, 2017. At least 58 people were killed and almost 500 were injured when
a gunman opened fire on the crowd. Police said the gunman, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, fired from the Mandalay Bay hotel, several hundred feet southwest of the concert grounds. He was found dead in his hotel room, and authorities believe he killed himself and that he acted alone. It is the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
Police direct family members away from the scene of a shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in June 2016. Omar Mateen, 29,
opened fire inside the club, killing at least 49 people and injuring more than 50. Police fatally shot Mateen during an operation to free hostages that officials say he was holding at the club.
In December 2015,
two shooters killed 14 people and injured 21 at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, where employees with the county health department were attending a holiday event. The shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, were later killed in a shootout with authorities. The pair were found to be radicalized extremists who planned the shootings as a terror attack, investigators said.
Police search students outside Umpqua Community College after
a deadly shooting at the school in Roseburg, Oregon, in October 2015. Nine people were killed and at least nine were injured, police said. The gunman, Chris Harper-Mercer, committed suicide after exchanging gunfire with officers, a sheriff said.
A man kneels across the street from the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina,
following a shooting in June 2015. Police say the suspect, Dylann Roof, opened fire inside the church, killing nine people. According to police, Roof confessed and told investigators he wanted to start a race war.
He was eventually convicted of murder and hate crimes, and a jury recommended the death penalty.
Police officers walk on a rooftop at the Washington Navy Yard after a
shooting rampage in the nation's capital in September 2013. At least 12 people and suspect Aaron Alexis were killed, according to authorities.
Connecticut State Police evacuate
Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. Adam Lanza opened fire in the school, killing 20 children and six adults before killing himself. Police said he also shot and killed his mother in her Newtown home.
James Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to a July 2012 shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Twelve people were killed and dozens were wounded when Holmes opened fire during the midnight premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises." He was sentenced to 12 life terms plus thousands of years in prison.
A military jury convicted Army Maj.
Nidal Hasan of 13 counts of premeditated murder for a November 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. Thirteen people died and 32 were injured.
Jiverly Wong shot and killed 13 people at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York, before turning the gun on himself in April 2009, police said. Four other people were injured at the
immigration center shooting. Wong had been taking English classes at the center.
Pallbearers carry a casket of one of
Michael McLendon's 10 victims. McLendon shot and killed his mother in her Kingston, Alabama, home, before shooting his aunt, uncle, grandparents and five more people. He shot and killed himself in Samson, Alabama, in March 2009.
Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho went on a shooting spree on the school's campus in April 2007. Cho killed two people at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory and, after chaining the doors closed, killed another 30 at Norris Hall, home to the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department. He wounded an additional 17 people before killing himself.
Mark Barton walked into two Atlanta trading firms and fired shots in July 1999, leaving nine dead and 13 wounded, police said. Hours later, police found Barton at a gas station in Acworth, Georgia, where he pulled a gun and killed himself. The day before, Barton had bludgeoned his wife and his two children in their Stockbridge, Georgia, apartment, police said.
Eric Harris, left, and Dylan Klebold brought guns and bombs to
Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in April 1999. The students gunned down 13 and wounded 23 before killing themselves.
In October 1991,
George Hennard crashed his pickup through the plate-glass window of Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, before shooting 23 people and committing suicide.
James Huberty shot and killed 21 people, including children, at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California, in July 1984. A police sharpshooter killed Huberty an hour after the rampage began.
Prison guard George Banks is led through the Luzerne County courthouse in 1985. Banks killed 13 people, including five of his children, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in September 1982. He was sentenced to death in 1993 and received a stay of execution in 2004. His death sentence was overturned in 2010.
Officers in Austin, Texas, carry victims across the University of Texas campus after Charles Joseph Whitman opened fire from the school's tower, killing 16 people and wounding 30 in 1966. Police officers shot and killed Whitman, who had killed his mother and wife earlier in the day.
Howard Unruh, a World War II veteran, shot and killed 13 of his neighbors in Camden, New Jersey, in 1949. Unruh barricaded himself in his house after the shooting. Police overpowered him the next day. He was ruled criminally insane and committed to a state mental institution.
Two days before the attack, he left his house angry and was carrying a bag of guns. Salman begged her husband not to leave and grabbed him by the arm, she said.
Two hours after the attack started, Mateen texted his wife at 4 a.m. and asked her whether she heard the news about the shooting. At one point, Salman told Mateen that she loved him.
Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, last year described a brief but violent relationship to a man whom she was only able to escape through her family's help. She said he was physically abusive and a steroid abuser.
CNN's Catherine E. Shoichet, Joe Sterling, Phil Gast, Dan Simon and Madison Park contributed to this report