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The former leader of the right-wing extremist group The Proud Boys has been sentenced to 22 years in prison, the harshest sentence ever handed down in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly handed down Henry “Enrique” Tarrio’s sentence Tuesday in Washington federal court just blocks from the Capitol where a mob of Donald Trump’s mob had tried to stop Joe Certification of Biden’s victory. Prosecutors sought a 33-year prison sentence for Tarrio, whom they accuse of playing a major role in a plot to thwart the peaceful transfer of power that day.
“The Justice Department has shown in court that the ‘Proud Boys’ played a central role in the Jan. 6 attack on our Capitol,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement after the sentencing. “Today , the leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, learned that the consequence of conspiring to use force against the legal transfer of power to the President was to serve 22 years in federal prison.”
It is the latest in a string of sentences that judges have imposed over the violence at the Capitol, ranging from a suspended sentence to up to 18 years in prison.
Meanwhile, legal challenges related to the 2020 presidential election continue to unfold across the United States. In recent weeks, Trump has faced criminal charges at the federal and state levels for trying to overturn the 2020 vote, accused of trying to interfere in the Jan. 6 attacks. The former president has pleaded not guilty in separate cases brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and the state of Georgia.
Tarrio, who is the national chairman of the far-right Proud Boys, one of several militia and activist groups whose members are in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump claimed in front of his supporters that the 2020 The vote in 2019 was tainted by electoral fraud. .
He is one of more than 1,100 defendants facing charges over the riots. He was charged with criminal charges of assaulting police officers and obstructing official proceedings and law enforcement. He was found guilty in May of seditious conspiracy, a rare charge dating back to the American Civil War to punish plots against the government.
Stewart Rhodes, leader of the right-wing Guardians of the Oath militia, was previously sentenced to 18 years in prison for sedition conspiracy in connection with the attack.
U.S. prosecutors charged Tarrio and others with conspiring to “use force” to “oppose” the transition of power in the 2020 elections, according to the Justice Department indictment.
The criminal complaint outlines Tarrio’s role as the mastermind behind the Jan. 6 attack. His social media posts during the riots included: “Don’t fucking leave” and “After I finish watching this, I’ll make a statement about my arrest…”. . . But now I’m enjoying the show. . . If you want to do it, you must do it. #WeThePeople,” according to court documents.
Tarrio was arrested in Washington on January 4, 2021, and charged with destroying property and possessing a large magazine. He was detained briefly but was released before Jan. 6, a day prosecutors said he witnessed events unfold outside Washington.
Court documents show that prior to the attack, Tarrio made public statements related to the expected outcome of the 2020 presidential election. “The media keeps accusing us of wanting to start a civil war,” he wrote at one point, according to court documents. “Careful you fucking demand we don’t want to start one . . . but we’re fucking going to finish one.”
A lawyer for Tario said he intends to appeal: “While we respect the court’s decision today, we disagree that it was an appropriate sentence.”
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