Former Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio is scheduled to be sentenced by a federal judge Tuesday for leading a failed plot to forcibly prevent the peaceful transfer of power from then-President Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election.
Prosecutors are seeking a 33-year prison sentence for Tarrio which, if given, would be the longest sentence related to the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.
Tarrio was arrested in Washington, DC, days before the riot for burning a DC church's Black Lives Matter banner and bringing high-capacity rifle magazines into the district, and was ordered by a judge to leave the city.
Tarrio is the last of five Proud Boys defendants to be sentenced. He and three other members of the Proud Boys leadership were found guilty of seditious conspiracy. A fifth member was acquitted of the seditious conspiracy charge but was found guilty of a range of other charges.
District Judge Timothy Kelly has consistently gone far below previous Justice Department sentencing requests for Proud Boys members convicted in this case.
Kelly sentenced Ethan Nordean and Joseph Biggs, two of the far-right organization's top lieutenants, to 18- and 17-year prison sentences, respectively. Zachary Rehl, a local Proud Boys chapter leader, was sentenced to 15 years behind bars, while Dominic Pezzola, a low-level member and the only defendant acquitted of the seditious conspiracy charge, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
During the months-long trial, prosecutors showed evidence that Tarrio helped to create a command structure within the Proud Boys in the lead up to January 6 that dictated how members of the organization would work when attending high-profile rallies.
Though he was not in Washington, DC, on January 6, Tarrio expressed his support for the rioters online and was in touch with his co-defendants on the ground, prosecutors said.
Biggs and Nordean, who assumed leadership in Tarrio's absence, led the charge at the Capitol, prosecutors said. The Proud Boys were at the front of the mob, breaking past barriers and the police line and smashing windows to let rioters inside the historic building in the first breaches that eventually led to Congress evacuating and temporarily halting the certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
