WA Proud Boys leader joins $100M lawsuit against DOJ over Jan. 6 case

A prominent local member of the Proud Boys joined four other leaders of the far-right extremist group in a lawsuit against the Department of Justice on Friday, demanding more than $100 million in damages over their convictions for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Ethan Nordean, an Auburn man, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison in 2023 after a jury convicted him on charges of seditious conspiracy and other crimes for his role in leading the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol in an effort to block Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results.

Nordean, 34, was released this year after President Donald Trump issued a sweeping order pardoning and commuting the sentences of hundreds of people convicted of crimes in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In the federal lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Florida, Nordean and the other Proud Boy leaders allege the government’s prosecution of them violated their constitutional rights.

Their 28-page complaint claims the Justice Department engaged in “egregious and systemic abuse of the legal system and the United States Constitution to punish and oppress political allies of President Donald Trump” and compared their treatment to “placing one’s enemies’ heads on a spike outside the town wall as a warning to any who would think to challenge the status quo.”

The other Proud Boy plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Enrique Tarrio, the group’s national leader, Zachary Rehl, Joseph Biggs and Dominic Pezzola. All were convicted and sentenced for helping lead the 2021 breach of the Capitol as a joint session of Congress gathered to certify the election won by Joe Biden.

Their lawsuit seeks compensatory damages and punitive damages of more than $100 million, plus attorneys fees and other legal expenses.

Trump himself has recently endorsed potential payments to Jan. 6 defendants he pardoned, saying his administration was considering creation of a compensation fund, The New York Times reported in March.

“They were patriots as far as I was concerned,” Trump said in an interview with the pro-Trump television network Newsmax. “I talk about them a lot. They were treated very unfairly.”

In February 2021, the lawsuit states, Nordean’s home was raided by heavily armed FBI agents using automatic weapons and flash-bang grenades. It describes the raid as “terrorizing” his family, while he was thrown to the ground and held at gunpoint.

The lawsuit says the government had no “probable cause” at the time of the arrest. It also says Nordean was held at times in solitary confinement and claims the government interfered with his ability to meet with his legal team, calling his treatment “cruel and unusual.”

Nordean was a body builder who worked for his family’s restaurant when he got involved with the Proud Boys, a self-described “Western chauvinist” group that acted as a paramilitary security force for right-ring causes, sometimes engaging in street brawls with far-left protesters.

At his sentencing, a prosecutor called Nordean “the undisputed leader on the ground on Jan. 6.” The Justice Department said Nordean and others planned the attack in advance, and, using two-way radios, “directed and mobilized” their followers to dismantle metal barricades meant to protect the Capitol, which led to the crowd assaulting law enforcement officers.

In convicting him, a jury found that he and other Proud Boy leaders had “conspired to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential powers by force.”

They were motivated by the so-called “Stop the Steal” movement, stoked by Trump and his allies, which falsely claimed Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was fraudulent. At the Capitol, some protesters erected a gallows and chanted to hang then-Vice President Mike Pence.

In a podcast after the election, Nordean talked about “the day of rope” for “traitors” who accepted its results. That term, prosecutors said, was lifted from “The Turner Diaries,” a racist and antisemitic novel depicting the violent overthrow of the “Zionist Occupied” U.S. government by white supremacists.

At trial, however, a defense attorney for Nordean and co-defendants portrayed them as dupes — “basically incompetent people” — who had no real ability to overthrow the government.

And Nordean himself expressed some regret at having been led on by Trump. “I’ve followed this guy for 4 years and given everything and lost it all,” he said in a message entered as evidence in the trial.

He added: “(Expletive) you trump, you left us on the battlefield bloody and alone.”

That was before Trump’s election to a second term last year, and his subsequent decision to commute and pardon Nordean and others.

It’s not clear whether Nordean, who was released from federal prison in Florida, was back in the Pacific Northwest. Attorneys representing Nordean and the other plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit did not immediately respond to a request for further comment Friday.