A former leader of the far-right group Proud Boys was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Friday for his role in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, tying the record for the longest sentence in the attack.
Ethan Nordean was one of five members convicted of leading an attack on the US Capitol in an attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden following the 2020 presidential election.
“He’s the undisputed leader in the field on January 6,” prosecutor Jason McCullough said.
The Seattle-area chapter president was one of two Proud Boys convicted on Friday. Dominic Pezzola was found guilty of smashing a window in the United States Capitol in the building’s first breach. January 6, 2021.
He raised his fist defiantly and said, “Trump won! as he walked out of the courtroom after being sentenced to 10 years in prison, also one of the longest sentences in the January 6 attack.
Proud Boys member Ethan Nordean walks to the United States Capitol in Washington in support of President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.
The 18-year record of sentencing on January 6 was set by Stewart Rhodes, founder of another far-right group, the Oath Keepers.
Members of both groups were convicted separately of seditious conspiracy, an offense rarely committed during the Civil War era.
The highest-ranking Proud Boy, convicted after a months-long trial earlier this year, Proud Boys frontman Enrique Tarrio is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday.
Prosecutors said Nordean’s comments and online posts grew increasingly violent through Jan. 6.
That day, he led a group of nearly 200 men to the Capitol, then stood in front of the crowd and helped tear down a fence, allowing rioters to flood the field and confront police. , according to court documents. Prosecutors had requested a 27-year prison sentence.
Defense attorneys argued there was no plan to storm the Capitol that day and dismissed the idea that Nordean tore down the fence or that his rhetoric was specifically about Jan. 6. They asked for less than two years.
For his part, the 33-year-old from Auburn, Wash., told the judge he now considered Jan. 6 a “total and utter tragedy” and he regretted not trying to use his leadership role in stopping what happened.
“No political gathering or protest should be of value at the expense of human life,” he said. “To anyone I’ve wronged directly or even indirectly, I’m sorry.”
Sentencing was handed down by Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly who also sentenced Pezzola earlier in the day and applied a terrorism penalty in both cases.
Nordean was ‘the undisputed leader in the field on January 6,’ prosecutor Jason McCullough said
Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence the Seattle-area chapter president to 27 years in prison.
Nordean was one of several members convicted of leading an attack on the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
Nordean was found guilty of seditious conspiracy and other serious charges
Members of both groups were convicted separately of seditious conspiracy, an offense rarely committed during the Civil War era.
Pezzola, 46, took a police officer’s riot shield and used it to smash the window, allowing rioters to make the first breach into the Capitol, and he later filmed a ‘celebratory video’ with a cigar inside, prosecutors said.
However, he was a recent recruit to the Proud Boys and a jury acquitted him of seditious conspiracy. He was found guilty of other serious charges and prosecutors requested 20 years in prison.
“He was an enthusiastic infantryman,” prosecutor Erik Kenerson said.
Kelly noted that Pezzola, of Rochester, New York, was a newcomer to the group who had not written the kind of increasingly violent online posts his co-defendants had made before the Jan. 6 attack.
Still, he was something of a “spearhead” in allowing rioters into the Capitol, Kelly said.
“The reality is that you broke that window and let people start pouring into the Capitol building and threatening the lives of our lawmakers,” the judge told Pezzola. “It’s not something I would have ever imagined seeing in our country.”
Defense attorneys had asked for five years in prison for Pezzola, saying he had been “caught in madness” that day.
Pezzola told the trial he initially grabbed the cop’s shield to protect himself from police riot control measures, and his lawyers argued he only broke one window and it was other rioters who had broken the rest of the window.
Prosecutors said Nordean’s online comments and posts grew increasingly violent until January 6.
Nordeen led a group of nearly 200 men towards the Capitol, then stood in front of the crowd and helped tear down a fence.
More than 1,100 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riots. More than 600 of them were found guilty and sentenced
He told the judge he wished he had never crossed a restricted area on January 6 and he apologized to the officer whose shield he had taken. “There is no room in my future for bands or politics of any kind,” he said.
But minutes later, as he was being led out of the courtroom, he raised his fist and said, “Trump won! »
Former President Donald Trump and his allies have repeatedly and falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen.
A series of federal and state investigations and dozens of lawsuits I found no evidence the elections were rigged.
Four Proud Boys were convicted after a months-long trial that ended in May.
Joseph Biggs, an organizer from Ormond Beach, Florida, was sentenced Thursday to 17 years in prison, the second longest sentence so far in the Jan. 6 attack.
Zachary Rehl, one of the leaders of the Philadelphia chapter, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. The convictions come after the Proud Boys trial laid bare far-right extremists’ embrace of Trump.
More than 1,100 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riots. More than 600 of them have been found guilty and sentenced.
In addition to Rhodesseveral other members of the anti-government group Oath Keepers were also convicted of seditious conspiracy following a trial last year.
