Proud Boys Leader Gets 18 Years, Matching Longest Jan. 6 Punishment To Date

By Washington Post
Posted on 09/02/23 | News Source: Washington Post

Two more members of the Proud Boys convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol were sentenced to lengthy prison terms Friday, with one of the group’s leaders that day receiving an 18-year sentence for seditious conspiracy, the longest term for a Proud Boys member so far and equal to the longest Jan. 6 sentence yet imposed. Another member who gained national renown for smashing a window at the Capitol, enabling the first breach of the building by rioters, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

But some of the defendants seemed unrepentant. After expressing deep remorse over his actions on Jan. 6, and receiving the 10-year term, half what prosecutors had sought, Dominic Pezzola turned to the audience as he left the courtroom Friday, raised his fist and yelled, “Trump won!”

The sentencings are the latest milestone in the Jan. 6 investigation, which has targeted leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers who led their members to the Capitol and inflamed the actions of the larger crowd of Donald Trump supporters angry with the 2020 election results.

Prosecutors have now racked up dozens of guilty pleas or trial convictions for members of the two groups, with sentences ranging from home detention to 18 years for Ethan Nordean, who was sentenced after Pezzola on Friday, and for Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who was sentenced earlier this year. Nordean and Pezzola were convicted after a five-month trial with co-defendants Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio.

On Thursday, Biggs was sentenced to 17 years and Rehl received 15 years. Tarrio, who prosecutors say deserves a 33-year prison term, is set to be sentenced Tuesday.

Nordean, 33, of Washington state, was tapped to head the “boots on the ground” in D.C. after Tarrio was banned from the city because of a Jan. 4 arrest. Nordean and Biggs, a far-right online personality and associate of broadcaster Alex Jones, used bullhorns to direct about 200 men away from a rally featuring Trump.

Photos and videos show the two marching the group toward the Capitol long before Trump’s remarks at the “Stop the Steal” rally, and then imploring Proud Boys as well as the arriving crowd of Trump supporters to overrun the police and enter the Capitol after the electoral vote certification began at 1 p.m. on Jan. 6.