Former Proud Boys member Joseph Biggs was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Thursday for a failed plot to keep Donald Trump in power after the last presidential election, part one of the most significant prosecutions related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of at least 27 years for the organizer for the far-right extremist group, which would have been the longest so far in connection with the Capitol riot.
“I know that I messed up that day,” Biggs told District Judge Timothy Kelly just before being sentenced, “but I’m not a terrorist.”
A federal jury in Washington, D.C., found Biggs, the former U.S. Army veteran from Ormond Beach, Fla., and three others guilty of seditious conspiracy in May after hearing from dozens of witnesses over more than three months of trial. Those other defendants included Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio of Miami as well as group chapter leaders Ethan Nordean of Auburn, Wash., and Philadelphia native Zachary Rehl.
Tarrio, Nordean, Biggs and Rehl were also convicted of obstructing Congress’s certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory and obstructing law enforcement as well as two other conspiracy charges.
Rehl is scheduled to be sentenced later Thursday, and the others in the coming days.
The Justice Department hadn’t tried a seditious conspiracy case in a decade before a jury convicted another extremist group leader, Stewart Rhodes. Unlike Biggs, the Oath Keepers founder Rhodes was defiant, characterizing himself as a political dissident, as he was sentenced earlier this year to 18 years in prison.
Leader cheered on members
The backbone of the government’s case against the Proud Boys consisted of hundreds of messages exchanged leading up to Jan. 6 that show the far-right extremist group peddling Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and trading fears over what would happen when Biden took office.
Tarrio was not at the Capitol but cheered them on from afar, writing on social media: “Do what must be done.”
“Make no mistake … we did this,” Tarrio wrote to other group leaders later in the day. He also posted encouraging messages on social media during the riot, expressing pride for what he saw unfold at the Capitol and urging his followers to stay there.
Defence lawyers said there was no plan to attack the Capitol or stop Congress’s certification of Biden’s win.
The assault on the Capitol overwhelmed police, forced lawmakers to flee the House and Senate floors, and disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying Biden’s victory.
More than 1,100 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the attack. More than 600 of them have been sentenced, with over half receiving terms of imprisonment.
Trump trial date set
The Justice Department, through special counsel Jack Smith, has also recently charged Trump with conspiring to subvert American democracy, accusing the Republican of plotting in the days before the attack to overturn the results of the election that he lost.
Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives after the Capitol attack on grounds of incitement of insurrection. Fifty-seven senators, including seven Republicans, voted for impeachment, but that was 10 votes short of the two-thirds majority needed for a Senate conviction.
Trump, who is the early front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, insists he did nothing wrong. His trial in that case, one of four criminal indictments he faces, is set to begin on March 4, 2024.
The origins of the Proud Boys stretch back about a decade, with Canadian Gavin McInnes a founder.
Tarrio, a Miami resident, 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 2020 presidential debate with Biden.