2023-09-06 04:59:47
The leader of the far-right organization Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, of Cuban origin, was sentenced this Tuesday by the federal court of the District of Columbia to 22 years in prison for being the “ultimate leader of the conspiracy” that ended the assault on the Capitol. American on January 6, 2021.
The sentence to the leader of the group of fans of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021), which his lawyers plan to appeal, It is the highest of all those that have been pronounced against the leaders of the nationalist group, who were found guilty of sedition last May after a trial that lasted four months.
It is also the highest of all those involved in the events and comes after four other ringleaders were sentenced last week to between 10 and 18 years in prison.
The US Attorney’s Office requested 33 years in prison for Tarrio, 39, for considering that he was the ringleader of a plot to break the center of American democracy by directing violent activities against Congress on the day that he had to ratify the Joe Biden victory.
“If we do not have a peaceful transition of power, we have nothing,” the Prosecutor’s Office said on Tuesday. at the hearing in which the sentence was read and in which Tarrio participated, dressed in his orange prison jumpsuit.
Before hearing his sentence and after several of his relatives intervened asking the judge for clemency, Tarrio also spoke to express how sorry he was for what happened and ask for forgiveness.
“The events of January 6 are something that should never be celebrated” as “they were a national disgrace,” he said, his voice cracking.
In his speech, he added that on November 3, 2020, his candidate (Trump) lost the elections, a vision totally opposite to what the protesters thought that day, who adopted the fallacy of electoral fraud, something that Trump himself continues to defend.
Tarrio, born in Miami to Cuban parents and leader of the group since 2018, was not in Washington when the assault on the Capitol took place because He had an order that prohibited him from approaching the capital, since days before he had been arrested for burning a flag at a historic African American community church.
At the time of the attack he was in a hotel in Baltimore, about 45 miles from the Capitol, but had spent the previous days sending instructions to other members of the Proud Boys on what to do that day, during the march that Trump had called with the motto “Stop the steal” (“Stop the robbery”).
On this detail, in his absence from the scene, his lawyers tried to base the defense. “My client’s plan was neither to destroy property nor to assault security forces,” said one of the lawyers.
But Judge Timothy Kelly was clear about his direct participation as the “ultimate leader of the conspiracy”, some events that caused damage to property, people and also to the essence of the United States, to the “invaluable” tradition of the transfer of powers He stated this Tuesday.
Last Friday, the organization’s leader in Seattle, Ethan Nordean, was sentenced to 18 years. Nordean was seen leading a group of protesters with a megaphone shortly before the riot began.
Also On Friday, a 10-year sentence was handed down against Dominic Pezzola, who broke the first window with a stolen police shield for which the protesters entered the Capitol.
And the day before, Joseph Biggs, Tarrio’s lieutenant, and Zachary Rehl, the former leader in Philadelphia, had their verdict, against whom 17 and 15 years in prison were sentenced, respectively.
Rehl, Biggs, Nordean and Tarrio were found guilty in May of conspiring 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.
On January 6, 2021, some 10,000 people -most of them Trump supporters- marched towards the Capitol and some 800 stormed the building. There were 5 deaths and about 140 injured agents.
Since then, more than 1,000 people have been arrested and 350 charged with assault or hindering law enforcement, according to Justice Department data. Many are fugitives from Justice.
In another judicial process, in May 2022 the founder of the ultra-right group Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, was sentenced to 18 years.
Although not directly for the attack, Trump himself is indicted in both Washington and the state of Georgia for his attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The former president has pleaded not guilty in those two cases and also in the other two criminal cases open against him in New York and Miami.
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