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The former leader of the rightwing extremist group Proud Boys has been sentenced to 22 years in prison, the harshest penalty to be handed down in a case stemming from the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 2021.
The sentence for Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was delivered Tuesday by US district judge Timothy Kelly in a Washington federal court mere blocks from the Capitol, where a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters had sought to block the certification of Joe Biden’s win. Prosecutors had sought a prison sentence of 33 years for Tarrio, whom they accused of playing a major role in a plot to thwart the peaceful transfer of power that day.
“The Justice Department proved in court that the Proud Boys played a central role in setting the January 6th attack on our Capitol into motion,” US attorney-general Merrick Garland said in a statement after sentencing. “Today, the leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, learned that the consequence of conspiring to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power is 22 years in federal prison.”
It is the latest in a string of penalties handed down by judges in connection with the violence that unfolded at the Capitol, which have ranged from probation to prison terms of up to 18 years.
It comes as legal challenges related to the 2020 presidential election continue to unfold across the US. Trump has in recent weeks been hit with criminal charges at the federal and state level for seeking to overturn the result of the 2020 vote, accused of attempted interference in the lead-up to the January 6 attack. The former president has pleaded not guilty in the cases, which were brought by the US Department of Justice and the state of Georgia, respectively.
Tarrio was the national chair of the far-right organisation Proud Boys, one of several militia and militant groups whose members were in Washington on January 6 2021, as Trump claimed the 2020 vote was tainted by election fraud in front of a crowd of his supporters.
He is among more than 1,100 defendants to face charges in connection with the riot. He was charged with criminal counts including assaulting officers as well as obstruction of an official proceeding and law enforcement. He was convicted in May of seditious conspiracy, a rare charge dating back to the American civil war that punishes plots against the government.
Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the rightwing Oath Keepers militia group, was previously sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the attack.
US prosecutors accused Tarrio and others of conspiring to “oppose” the transition of power in the 2020 elections “by force”, according to the DoJ’s indictment.
The criminal complaint outlined Tarrio’s role as a main planner of the January 6 attack. He published social media posts during the riots including: “Don’t fucking leave” and “After I finish watching this I’ll make a statement about my arrest . . . But for now I’m enjoying the show . . . Do want must be done. #WeThePeople,” according to court filings.
Tarrio on January 4 2021 was arrested and charged in Washington with destruction of property and possession of large-capacity magazines. He was briefly detained but released before January 6, and prosecutors said he watched the day’s events unfold from outside Washington.
Leading up to the attack, Tarrio made public statements related to the projected results of the 2020 presidential election, according to court documents. “The media constantly accuses us of wanting to start a civil war,” he wrote on one occasion, according to court filings. “Careful what the fuck you ask for we don’t want to start one . . . but we will sure as fuck finish one.”
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