WASHINGTON (AP) – The former leader of the Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the far-right extremist group were convicted Thursday of a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol in a desperate bid to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 presidential election.
A jury in Washington, DC, found Tarrio and three lieutenants guilty seditious conspiracy after listening to dozens of witnesses for more than three months in one of the most serious cases brought to the stunning attack that unfolded on January 6, 2021, as the world saw on live television.
Jurors acquitted a fifth defendant, Dominic Pezzola, of the sedition charge, although he was convicted of other serious crimes. The judge excused the jury without returning a verdict on some charges, including another conspiracy charge for Pezzola, after jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision.
It’s a major milestone for the Justice Department, which has now secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the leaders of two major extremist groups that prosecutors say were intent on keeping Democratic President Joe Biden out of the White House at all costs. The charge carries a prison term of up to 20 years.
“The Department of Justice will never stop working to defend the democracy that every American has a right to,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters after the verdict.
Tarrio, behind bars since his arrest in March 2022, appeared to show no emotion as the verdict was read. He hugged one of his lawyers and shook hands with the other before leaving the courtroom. Some of the people sitting among the defendants’ relatives wiped away tears as the verdict was read.
The verdict comes after a trial that lasted more than twice as long as originally expected, slowed down by fightsvoid motions and disclosures of government informants in the group Securing the conviction of Tarrio, a high-profile leader who was not at the riot itself, could embolden the Justice Department as a special counsel investigates Trump, including key aspects of the Jan. 6 uprising.
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Special counsel Jack Smith in recent weeks has called for testimony from many people close to Trump. They include former Vice President Mike Pencewho testified before a grand jury last week, likely giving prosecutors a key first-person account of certain conversations and events in the weeks leading up to the riot.
Tarrio was the primary target of what has become the largest Justice Department investigation in US history. He led the neo-fascist group, known for street battles with left-wing activists, when Trump infamously told the Proud Boys that “Take it easy and wait” during his first debate with Biden.
Tarrio was not in Washington on January 6, because he had been arrested two days earlier in a separate case and had been ordered out of the capital. But prosecutors said he organized and led the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol that day.
In addition to Tarrio, a resident of Miami, three other Proud Boys were convicted of seditious conspiracy: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl.
Tarrio, Nordean, Biggs and Rehl were also convicted of obstructing congressional certification of Biden’s election victory and obstructing law enforcement, as well as two other conspiracy counts. All four were cleared of an assault charge stemming from Pezzola, who stole an officer’s riot shield.
The judge told jurors to continue deliberating on some remaining charges where they have not reached an agreement.
Rehl’s attorney, Carmen Hernandez, said her client “continues to maintain his innocence.” Attorneys for Biggs and Pezzola declined to comment. An attorney for Tarrio declined to comment.
Prosecutors told jurors the group considered itself “Trump’s army” and was prepared for “all-out war” to prevent Biden from becoming president.
The Proud Boys were “aligned behind Donald Trump and prepared to commit violence in his name,” prosecutor Conor Mulroe said in his closing argument.
The backbone of the government’s case were hundreds of messages exchanged by the Proud Boys in the days leading up to Jan. 6 that show the far-right extremist group trading Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and exchanging fears about what would happen when biden took office. .
As the Proud Boys swarmed the Capitol, Tarrio cheered them on from afar, writing on social media: “Do what needs to be done.” In an encrypted Proud Boys group chat later that day, someone asked what he should do next. Tarrio replied, “Do it again.”
“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote in another message. “We did this.”
Defense attorneys denied there was any plot to attack the Capitol or stop congressional certification of Biden’s victory. A lawyer for Tarrio tried to pin the blame on Trump, arguing that the former president incited the attack by the pro-Trump mob when he urged the crowd near the The White House to “fight like hell.”
“It was Donald Trump’s words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what happened on January 6 in your beautiful and amazing city,” attorney Nayib Hassan said in his final appeal to juries. “It wasn’t Enrique Tarrio. They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald J. Trump and those in power.”
The Justice Department hadn’t tried a seditious conspiracy case in a decade before a jury convicted another extremist group leader, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, of the Civil War-era charge last year.
Along two Oath Keepers trials, Rhodes and five other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy in what prosecutors said was a separate plot to forcibly stop the transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden. Three defendants were acquitted of sedition charges, but convicted of obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s election victory.
The Justice Department has yet to reveal how much prison time it will seek when the Oath Keepers are sentenced later this month.
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This story has been corrected to reflect that the Oath Keepers’ sentencing is scheduled for later this month, not next month.
