Proud Boys members Zachary Rel (left), Ethan Nordin (center), and Joseph Biggs stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Credit: Caroline Custer/AP
Two senior members of the Proud Boys militia were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for their role in the 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Donald Trump supporters.
Joe Biggs, leader of the Florida self-styled paramilitary movement, was sentenced to 17 years in prison on charges of sedition and other charges, one year short of the longest sentence given to a rioter on January 6, 2021.
< p>Zachary Rehl, leader of the Philadelphia Proud Boys, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on the same charges.
Prosecutors have called them key figures in an attack by thousands of people who sought to forcibly overturn Joe Biden's November 2020 election victory after Trump repeatedly claimed, without any basis, that the vote had been massively fraudulent.
Attack “broke our tradition of peaceful transfers of power, which is one of the most valuable things we Americans have had,” Judge Timothy Kelly said Thursday. up to 33 years in prison, stating that the attack was unlikely to be a mass-casualty terrorist event and neither Biggs nor Rel killed anyone.
However, Judge Kelly said, «There is a need for containment.»
Joe Biggs expressed deep regret over what happened < p>Biggs and Rel were among five figures in the Proud Boys, including national chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted on May 4 for leading the military attack on the Capitol.
Rel, Biggs, Tarrio, and Ethan Nordin were found guilty of conspiracy to sedition, while a fifth, Dominic Pezzola, was found not guilty of sedition.
All five were also convicted of obstruction of Congress, obstruction of law and order and destruction of public property.< /p>
39-year-old Biggs is a US Army veteran who worked closely with Tarrio in organizing a team to storm the Congress building.
Two months before the attack, he wrote that it was time for «war», referring to the defeat of Trump in the election by Biden.
After 6 January, he stated on social media that the attack was a «warning». to the government.
«I'm so sorry»
On the eve of Thursday's sentencing, Attorney Jason McCullough said Biggs and his fellow rioters' actions, shutting down Congress that day, were «no different from the act of spectacularly blowing up a building ”.
“They sought to intimidate and intimidate elected officials,” he said, equating the January 6 attack with terrorism.
However, crying Biggs, he expressed deep regret about what happened.
«I'm sorry,» he told a federal court in Washington. «I know I screwed up that day, but I'm not a terrorist.»
Norman Pattis, Biggs and Rel's attorney, told the court that they followed Trump's instructions in launching the attack and wondered why the former president hadn't charged with sedition.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department's special prosecutor charged Trump with separate conspiracy offenses for his role in making a false claim that the election was stolen from him.
«They listened to the President of the United States» United States «, — Pattis told the court.
They are «guilty of believing the president, who told them that the country was stolen from them,» he said.
Rehl, 38- one-year-old former US Marine burst into tears as he asked the judge to commute his sentence.Zachary Rehl was sentenced to 15 years in prison Photo: Carolyn Custer/AP
“I spent all my time in politics for people who are not even here today, who never offered any support and who casually watched me sink further and further to the bottom,” he said.
Biggs' sentence was one year short of his 18-year sentence. in May to Stuart Rhodes, founder of another far-right militia that took part in the siege of the Capitol, the Oath Keepers.
Mr. , who organized the group to go to Washington but has not been to the Capitol himself, may expect a similar result when he is sentenced on September 5.
Prosecutors also recommended that he be behind bars for 33 years.
More than 1,100 people were indicted by the Department of Justice in the attack on the Capitol.
About 630 of them pleaded guilty to various charges, and 110 were found guilty in court.
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