Ex-Proud Boys leader Tarrio sentenced to 22 years for Jan. 6 Capitol attack

WASHINGTON – Former Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, convicted of leading the group that one judge called “the tip of the spear that allowed people to end up getting into the Capitol” on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced Tuesday to 22 years in prison, the longest sentence yet among the hundreds convicted of disrupting the peaceful transfer of presidential power.

Tarrio, 39, was convicted of seditious conspiracy and obstructing the congressional proceeding meant to confirm the 2020 presidential election as part of a riot that U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly said last week broke America’s long democratic tradition of peaceful transfers of power. Tarrio was the last of five Proud Boys to be sentenced after all were convicted in May following a 15-week trial.

Tarrio, of Miami, was arrested and convicted even though he wasn’t in D.C. on Jan. 6. He had been arrested in December 2020 after he burned a “Black Lives Matter” flag torn down from a D.C. church during a protest in the city following President Donald Trump’s defeat. He was banned from the city as a result.

But prosecutors said he recruited people to join in a violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 to keep Trump in power and messaged them to not leave as they led the storming of the building, causing the electoral vote count to stop for about six hours. Kelly cited that message Tuesday in ruling that Tarrio still had a leadership role on Jan. 6, even if he wasn’t in D.C. Tarrio denied planning an incursion into the Capitol and gave interviews after the riot saying he did not endorse that move by multiple Proud Boys, some of whom were among the first to enter the building.

Prosecutors asked for a 33-year sentence for Tarrio, one of the most high-profile defendants who have gone to trial in the Capitol attack. But they also asked for 20 years or more for each of Tarrio’s four co-defendants, and Kelly declined to impose such terms.

The judge agreed that the convictions qualified as terrorism under federal law and increased the federal sentencing guidelines for Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. But he then declined to sentence each defendant within the advisory sentencing ranges, saying repeatedly that “the terrorism adjustment overstates your role in the offense.”

In the case of Nordean, who was an on-the-ground leader of the Proud Boys in Tarrio’s absence, Kelly imposed an 18-year term. That was equal to the longest sentence given to any Jan. 6 defendant so far, handed down to Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes.

Last week, another Proud Boys leader on Jan. 6, Joseph Biggs, who headed the march along with Nordean, received a 17-year sentence, while members Zachary Rehl received 15 years and Dominic Pezzola received 10 years. Biggs’ and Rehl’s sentences are the third- and fourth-longest so far. Kelly last week told Pezzola, whose smashing of a Capitol window enabled the first breach of the building, “You really were in some ways the tip of the spear that allowed people to end up getting into the Capitol.”

The sentencings are a crucial juncture in what prosecutors have called the largest investigation in U.S. history, targeting organized far-right groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers along with others who attacked the Capitol as part of a mission to prevent the transfer of power to Joe Biden. The rioters have said they were drawn to the Capitol by Donald Trump, who encouraged his backers to support his false claims of a stolen election, and who has now been targeted for prosecution himself for his efforts to subvert the election at the state level and in Congress.

Tarrio apologized for his actions and those of the Proud Boys, saying the police who defended the Capitol, some of whom were in the audience Tuesday, “deserve nothing but praise, respect and to be honored as the heroes they are. I am extremely ashamed and disappointed they were caused grief and suffering.” He also said he had early doubts about whether the election was stolen, but kept them to himself. “Every medium I turned to told me my anger was justified,” Tarrio said. “It wasn’t … I do not think what happened that day was acceptable.”

The trial for the five members of the Proud Boys earlier this year featured video captured by participants, journalists, police body cameras, surveillance cameras and even one of the five defendants recording the Proud Boys’ assault on the Capitol. The footage began with their initial group of 200 marching away from Trump’s rally on the Ellipse at 10 a.m., long before Trump began speaking, followed by their confrontations with police at several barricades, and finally their entry into the Capitol at 2:11 p.m. after a new member, Pezzola, used a stolen police riot shield to smash a window on the Capitol’s West Terrace.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe noted Tuesday that at the Peace Circle west of the Capitol, there was sparse and peaceful protest before the arrival of the Proud Boys, a “large group of men ready to fight. They had an integral role in that first breach,” overwhelming and injuring Capitol Police officers before charging to the next police line, where the Proud Boys helped pull down a black fence that created the next major breach at the Capitol steps.

“The actions of that group were absolutely pivotal to what happened on January 6,” Mulroe said, “and they followed the prodding and planning of Enrique Tarrio.”

At trial, prosecutors unspooled numerous internal messages among members of the group – some of whom pleaded guilty before trial and testified against Tarrio and the others – showing the men planning their trip to D.C. and detailing their often vulgar disgust at what they wrongly believed was a stolen election.

The group’s membership had been boosted by a seeming endorsement from Trump during a presidential debate with Biden in 2020, trial testimony showed. Prosecutors said Tarrio picked only the most trustworthy members to participate in messaging chats, to plan and ultimately to march on the Capitol. Two members who were troubled by the violent nature of the planning discussions testified that they quit the Proud Boys before Jan. 6.

After a trial lasting nearly five months, Tarrio and three of his top lieutenants were convicted in May of seditious conspiracy and five other felonies, including obstruction of an official proceeding and destruction of federal property. Tarrio didn’t testify in his own defense, but his lawyers argued that he hadn’t planned an incursion of the Capitol.

“Being a leader in the Proud Boys organization is not the equivalent of being a leader and organizer of the events” of Jan. 6, defense attorneys Nayib Hassan and Sabino Jauregui wrote in a sentencing brief. “There is zero evidence to suggest Tarrio directed any participants to storm the U.S. Capitol building prior to or during the event. … In fact, Tarrio was not in contact with anyone during the event he is alleged to have led or organized.”

The jury didn’t agree that Tarrio was blameless. One juror told Vice News that the jury quickly came to a consensus that the five defendants were all guilty of conspiracy and seditious conspiracy, and that they needed several more days simply to parse the role of all five defendants in each of the 10 counts.

“It was all the chatter. All the chats” on social media among the Proud Boys, juror Andre Mundell said. He added: “I think that was what it boiled down to. What they had to say prior to Jan. 6 and the fact that they wanted to do so much in secret.”

The fifth defendant, Pezzola, of Rochester, N.Y., was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but found guilty of assaulting federal officers, robbery of federal property and two counts of destroying federal property.

The Proud Boys’ trial came shortly after the conviction of five Oath Keepers, a far-right group whose members were charged in a separate Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy. U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta also granted the terrorism enhancement in his Oath Keepers sentencings, then also gave far shorter sentences than the government sought. Most D.C. judges, including Kelly, also have granted sentence extensions for obstruction of justice, over defense attorneys’ repeated arguments that Congress is not involved in justice, but some have rejected that request, too.

The D.C. judges in the Jan. 6 cases have imposed less time for sentences than requested by prosecutors in about 80 percent of the more than 500 defendant sentencings through mid-June, a Washington Post database shows.

Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.