US: ‘Proud Boys’ leader Joe Biggs sentenced to 17 years in Capitol Riots case

Washington DC [US], September 1 : Joe Biggs, a leader of the ‘Proud Boys’ group has been sentenced to 17 years of prison for allegedly leading the far-right organization’s infamous march to the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, CNN reported on Thursday.
Notably, this is among the longest sentences handed down yet for a convicted rioter.
Joe Biggs was convicted by a Washington, DC jury of several charges including seditious conspiracy for attempting to forcibly prevent the peaceful transfer of power from then-President Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election, CNN reported.
A second member of the Proud Boys, former Marine Zachary Rehl, the president of his local Philadelphia chapter of the organization, was later sentenced to 15 years.
“Our Constitution and laws give you so many important rights that Americans have fought and died for and that you yourself put on a uniform to defend,” CNN quoted District Judge Timothy Kelly saying in handing down the sentence to Biggs.
“People around the world would give anything for these rights,” he added.
Kelly further said that the January 6, 2021 incident “broke our tradition of the peaceful transferring of power” in the United States.
“The nature of the constitutional moment we were in that day is something that is so sensitive that it deserves a significant sentence,” Kelly said.
Notably, the prosecutors had initially asked Kelly to sentence Biggs to 33 years in prison – nearly double the longest sentence a defendant has received related to the January 6, 2021 attack – arguing that Biggs and his codefendants “intentionally positioned themselves at the vanguard of political violence in this country” for years and sought to “change the course of American history,” CNN reported.
But, Kelly went significantly below that request, saying that he did not want to “minimise the violence that did occur” during the Capitol attack, but that he had to be conscious of what other people have been sentenced to for conduct related to January 6, 2021, as to not create large or unwarranted disparities.
The hefty sentence is the second longest sentence handed down for a defendant convicted as part of the Capitol attack. Oath Keeper leader and founder Stewart Rhodes has received the longest sentence of 18 years in prison, according to CNN.
In an emotional appeal to the judge, Biggs, clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, said that “I know that I have to be punished and I understand,” but added “Please give me the chance, I beg you, to take my daughter to school and pick her up.”
During a months long, and at times tumultuous trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Biggs and three of his codefendants – Ethan Nordean, Rehl and Enrique Tarrio – plotted and broadly encouraged violence in the lead-up to the Capitol attack.
When the riot broke out, Biggs, Nordean, and Rehl stood back while others – including the fifth defendant Dominic Pezzola – attacked police on the front line and pushed into the Capitol, prosecutors argued at trial.
Four of the defendants, Biggs, Tarrio, Nordean and Rehl, were convicted of seditious conspiracy, while Pezzola was acquitted of that charge.
All five Proud Boys were found guilty of other charges related to January 6, including: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging any duties, obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder, destruction of government property and aiding and abetting.
In a court filing before the sentencing hearing Thursday, prosecutors wrote that “the conduct of these defendants is more egregious than that of the Oath Keeper defendants and warrants greater sentences.”
During the hearing, the court while handing over the sentence to Marine Zachary Rehl, concluded that he was less of an architect than Biggs of the violent plot but noted that Rehl repeatedly lied on the stand during the trial.
Kelly also slammed Rehl for his “utterly inconceivable” testimony at trial that he thought rioters were merely looking for stages outside the building when they first breached the Capitol grounds that day, CNN reported.