A jury has found former Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio, and his top henchmen Joe Biggs, Ethan Nordean, and Zachary Rehl, guilty of seditious conspiracy for their plot to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 with the goal of preventing the peaceful transition of power.
The jury delivered a partial verdict in the high-profile case on Thursday morning after a little over a week of deliberations.
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Later on Thursday, jurors returned a not-guilty verdict for the fifth defendant, Dominic Pezzola, on seditious conspiracy.
Pezzola was a new member of the Proud Boys at the time of Jan. 6, but had been fast-tracked into an elite chapter of the gang. He was responsible for the first breach of the Capitol, and was seen on video smashing a window using a stolen police riot shield.
However, Pezzola and the other defendants were found guilty of other counts, including obstruction of Congress.
The seditious conspiracy charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. Jurors were deadlocked on two charges for all defendants (including whether they were culpable for another Proud Boy throwing a water bottle at a police officer). The government can decide whether they would like to retry those charges or not.
The trial has dragged out for nearly four months, with proceedings routinely sidetracked by courtroom antics from the lawyers representing the five Proud Boys on trial, which resulted in frequent reprimands from a visibly exasperated Judge Timothy Kelly.
“It’s remarkable to me the inability of lawyers in this case to shut their mouths while other lawyers are speaking,” Kelly said Tuesday, while addressing a juror question, according to reporting from Lawfare’s Roger Parloff.
A sixth high-profile Proud Boy, Jeremy Bertino aka “Noble Beard,” already plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in exchange for a lighter sentence and agreed to testify on behalf of the prosecution.
Thursday’s verdict will represent a major victory for the government investigators who’d zeroed in on the roles played by two extremist groups — the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers— in fomenting the violent riot at the Capitol.
Over the last four months, jurors were shown a trove of messages and videos exchanged and published by the defendants in the lead-up to the riot. U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe, in his closing statements, argued these messages —which included calls for violence against lawmakers, law enforcement, and political opponents—showed that the defendants believed politics “meant actual physical combat, a battle between good and evil in the most literal sense,” according to CNN.
Mulroe also told jurors that the government didn’t have to pinpoint a specific date when the “conspiracy” began—their agreement could have come together on Jan. 6, just as the barricades were already coming down.
The lawyers defending the Proud Boys accused the government of emotionally manipulating the jury by repeatedly showing them videos of the gang engaged in violent conduct prior to Jan. 6.
The Proud Boys seditious conspiracy case has been an emotional flashpoint for the far-right who have characterized the defendants and others facing charges for Jan. 6 as “political prisoners.”
But the trial has not had a chilling effect on Proud Boys activities. They’ve dissolved their sovereign chapter, and now operate as a decentralized network of far-right gangs, who, these days, often spend their weekends intimidating, threatening and harassing drag events around the country.
(Disclosure: Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, was a co-founder of VICE in 1994. He left the company in 2008 and has had no involvement since then.)
