2023-09-01 22:54:32
The leader of the far-right organization Proud Boys in Seattle, Ethan Nordean, was sentenced this Friday to 18 years in prison for the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Nordean and three other leaders of that nationalist group, including the leader, Enrique Tarrio, of Cuban origin, were found guilty of sedition last May after a trial that lasted four months.
His sentence equals the highest issued so far against a defendant for the attack, the 18-year-old who received in May the founder of the ultra-right-wing group Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodesalso for the conspiracy to keep former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) in the White House.
The prosecution had requested 27 years in prison against him. Nordean, also known as Rufio Panman, was seen leading a group of protesters with a megaphone shortly before the riot began, which tried to prevent the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Trump in the 2020 elections.
His verdict joins that of three other leaders or prominent members of that organization pronounced this week.
Also today, Dominic Pezzola, who broke the first window through which the protesters entered the Capitol with a stolen police shield, received 10 years in prison, 10 less than what the Prosecutor’s Office requested against him.
On Thursday Joseph Biggs, Tarrio’s lieutenant, and Zachary Rehl, the former leader in Philadelphia, had their verdict, for whom 17 and 15 years in prison were handed down, respectively, while next Tuesday it will be Tarrio’s turn.
Rehl, Biggs, Nordean y Tarrium They were found guilty in May conspire to commit sedition. Pezzola was cleared of that charge, but was found guilty of assault, resisting a law enforcement officer and theft of government property.
According to the Justice Department, the attack began at 10:00 a.m., when Biggs, Rehl, and others convinced about 200 people to go from the Ellipsethe park located south of the White House, towards the Capitol, skipping multiple security barriers.
Throughout the process, prosecutors showed messages and videos posted by the defendants themselves and other members of the group, calling for violence and revolution against the change in the presidency.
That January 6, 2021 about 10,000 people -mostly Trump supporters- marched to the Capitol and about 800 stormed the building. There were five deaths and about 140 injured agents.
Since then, more than 1,000 people have been arrested in virtually all 50 states for offenses related to the attack and more than 350 have been charged with assault or obstructing law enforcement, the Justice Department said Thursday.
Although not directly from the attackTrump himself is indicted in both Washington and the state of Georgia for his attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential elections.
The former president has pleaded not guilty in those two cases and in the other two criminal cases open against him, in Florida for taking classified papers from the White House and in New York for irregular payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels to silence during the campaign. of 2016 an “affair” that they had in the past.
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