Four Proud Boys Found Guilty On 31 of 46 Counts For January 6th

Photo by Anthony Crider, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Four Proud Boys, including leader Enrique Tarrio, have been convicted of various charges including seditious conspiracy relating to their involvement in the January 6th Capitol riots.

Washington Post:

Former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and three other members of the extremist group were found guilty Thursday of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

A jury deliberated for seven days in Washington before finding Tarrio, 29, and the others guilty on 31 of 46 counts. The jury handed down not guilty verdicts on four counts and returned to deliberate on a remaining 11 counts. The result was another decisive victory for the Justice Department in the latest of three seditious conspiracy trials held after what it called a historic act of domestic terrorism.

Over nearly 15 weeks of trial, prosecutors alleged that the Proud Boys on trial saw themselves as Trump’s “army.” Inspired by his directive to “stand by” during a September 2020 presidential debate and mobilized by his December 2020 call for a “wild” protest when Congress met to certify the election, prosecutors said the men sought to keep Trump in power through violence.

Defense attorneys for Tarrio fought back by blaming the former president, saying prosecutors made the five defendants scapegoats for an unplanned riot triggered by Trump’s incitement of angry supporters.

The jury, which began hearing testimony in January, deliberated about 30 hours over seven days in Washington.

Tarrio, 29, and the others were charged in a 10-count indictment. The charges included conspiring to oppose by force the lawful transition of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election, conspiring to obstruct Congress’s confirmation of the election result, and actually obstructing the joint session of Congress. The legal maximum penalty for either seditious conspiracy or the obstruction charges is 20 years in prison.

Also on trial were Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. All five men also faced charges of assaulting police and destroying federal property. Pezzola faced an additional charge of stealing a police riot shield that he allegedly used to smash the first window breached by rioters.

The verdict concludes the last of three Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy trials, the most high-profile cases stemming from the largest prosecution in U.S. history. In November and January, six members of the extremist Oath Keepers movement were convicted of the historically rare and politically weighty crime of seditious conspiracy in the assault, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes.