Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: We Have Not Heard the Last of ‘Proud Boy’ Enrique Tarrio

Stand back and stand by, you shitbag fascists. Your sentencing hearing approaches. https://t.co/6oGQ5PYwwP

— David Simon (@AoDespair) May 4, 2023

The legal maximum penalty for either seditious conspiracy or obstruction charges is 20 years in prison.

The verdict concludes the last of three Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy trials, the most high-profile cases from the largest prosecution in U.S. history. https://t.co/oYEFaHFDSv

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 4, 2023

Back in January 2021, Reuters published a comprehensive expose of Tarrio as ‘an informer for federal and local law enforcement going back as far as 2012. No doubt this complicated the current proceedings. Per the Associated Press:

… Tarrio, behind bars since his March 2022 arrest, didn’t appear to show any emotion as the verdict was read. He hugged one of his lawyers and shook the hand of the other before leaving the courtroom. A few of the people sitting among the defendants’ relatives wiped away tears as the verdict was read.

The verdict comes after a trial that took more than twice as long as originally expected, slowed by bickering, mistrial motions and revelations of government informants in the group. Securing the conviction of Tarrio, a high-profile leader who wasn’t at the riot itself, could embolden the Justice Department as a special counsel investigates Trump, including key aspects of the Jan. 6 insurrection…

Tarrio was a top target of what has become the largest Justice Department investigation in American history. He led the neo-fascist group — known for street fights with left-wing activists — when Trump infamously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate with Biden.

Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6, because he had been arrested two days earlier in a separate case and ordered out of the capital city. But prosecutors said he organized and directed the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol that day…

As Proud Boys swarmed the Capitol, Tarrio cheered them on from afar, writing on social media: “Do what must be done.” In a Proud Boys encrypted group chat later that day someone asked what they should do next. Tarrio responded: “Do it again.”

“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote in another message. “We did this.”

Defense lawyers denied there was any plot to attack the Capitol or stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. A lawyer for Tarrio sought to push the blame onto Trump, arguing the former president incited the pro-Trump mob’s attack when he urged the crowd near the White House to “fight like hell.”…

You are an informant.
You commit new crimes.
You go to jail. Simple really.

— StewartCortez (@SC0rtez) May 4, 2023

Politico:

… The five defendants face lengthy potential sentences. The seditious conspiracy and obstruction charges carry 20-year maximum sentences, and prosecutors are sure to seek significant sentencing enhancements that could stretch those sentences far higher than others handed down so far in Jan. 6 cases. The lengthiest Jan. 6 sentence to date — to a retired New York City police officer named Thomas Webster who brutally assaulted a D.C. officer on the front line of the riot — was 10 years. Prosecutors have sought sentences for three defendants — Webster, Patrick McCaughey and Guy Reffitt — of more than 17 years, but so far judges have rejected their harshest recommendations.

But no Jan. 6. defendants convicted of seditious conspiracy have faced sentencing yet. The first clues about what they are likely to face may come Friday, when prosecutors are preparing to recommend a sentence for Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers. He’s scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta on May 25.

The Proud Boys’ sentences will be offset by the fact that all five defendants have spent more than a year in pretrial detention. Nordean, Biggs, Rehl and Pezzola have been jailed since early 2021. Tarrio was arrested and jailed in early 2022. Their pretrial detention is likely to be subtracted from their ultimate sentences…

Trump’s bid to subvert the election occurred in tandem with the Proud Boys’ increasingly strained relationship with police, prosecutors say. The group began to sour on cops after a Dec. 12 pro-Trump rally in Washington, after which four Proud Boys were stabbed by someone the group took to be a member of antifa. Proud Boys leaders believed the police had protected their assailant, who was not arrested or charged. Prosecutors repeatedly showed how the group’s rhetoric toward cops — contained in hundreds of private chats obtained by FBI investigators — grew ominous and angry as Jan. 6 approached.

The stabbing — which nearly killed Proud Boy Jeremy Bertino — also prompted Proud Boys leaders to reconsider their tactics heading into Jan. 6. Tarrio and his allies worried that the group included too many men who were undisciplined and aggressive, willing to provoke violent confrontations. So he formed a new chapter, dubbed the “Ministry of Self-Defense,” meant to include only handpicked members who would follow orders.

Bertino became a central witness for prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy last year and took the stand to testify that he knew his former Proud Boys allies wanted a “revolution” and had agreed to stop the transfer of power. Though he indicated he didn’t know the specifics of any plan Tarrio might have hatched to accomplish this goal, he testified that the goal was certainly known among the leaders.

A week before Jan. 6, Tarrio received an email from a girlfriend with a document titled “1776 Returns,” which contained an outline of a plan to assemble a large crowd in Washington and storm government buildings. Prosecutors had no evidence that Tarrio shared the proposal with anyone, but they noted that he appeared to reference it in multiple conversations with associates, using the phrase “The Winter Palace,” which the document used as a euphemism for the Capitol — as well as an allusion to the Russian Revolution…

The noose tightens https://t.co/IC9cYs6BSq

— Justice Will Be Done (@GregProops) May 5, 2023