A US court has sentenced former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio to 22 years in prison. It is the highest penalty ever for the storming of the Capitol. Several members of the right-wing extremist militia were involved.
The former leader of the far-right US militia “Proud Boys”, Enrique Tarrio, has been sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the storming of the US Capitol in January 2021. “That day broke our previously unbroken tradition of peaceful transfers of power,” Justice Timothy Kelly said at the nearly four-hour sentencing hearing in Washington.
It is the highest penalty to date in connection with the storming of the Capitol. Several US media quoted a lawyer for Tarrios as saying that his client was planning to appeal.
On January 6, 2021, around 200 members of the “Proud Boys” were involved in the violent storming of the US Capitol by radical supporters of President Donald Trump, who was voted out. The attackers wanted to prevent Congress from finally confirming Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 presidential election that day.
Tarrio is credited with a central role
Tarrio, 39, and four other members of the “Proud Boys” were found guilty of “seditious conspiracy” in May. The other four received prison terms ranging from 10 to 18 years last week. Until then, Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers – another right-wing militia involved in the storming of the US Capitol – had received the maximum sentence of 18 years in prison.
The prosecution had asked for 33 years in prison for Tarrio. Although he was not in Washington on January 6, 2021, he is accused of directing the attack on the Capitol by members of the Proud Boys. Judge Kelly justified the high sentence against Tarrio by saying that he was the “supreme leader of the conspiracy”.
The judge was unimpressed by the remorse the accused expressed in the courtroom. In a partially tearful voice, Tarrio described January 6, 2021 as a “terrible day” and begged the judge for mercy.
Arrest before Capitol Storm
Prosecutors said that while Tarrio was not in person in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, he “did far more damage than he could have done as an individual instigator.” Tarrio acted more “as a general than as a soldier,” they said. “The only reason Tarrio didn’t march alongside the others was because he was arrested upon arrival in Washington DC.”
Tarrio was arrested two days before the Capitol storm for burning a Black Lives Matter flag. The supporter of then President Trump was initially released on condition that he stay away from Washington.
Trump himself was indicted by the federal judiciary in early August for his attempts to retrospectively overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and thus stay in power. He is due to appear in court in March on electoral conspiracy charges. In another trial against Trump and 18 other co-defendants for alleged election interference in the state of Georgia, no date has yet been set for the start of the trial.