Enrique Tarrio, the former president of the Proud Boys, and four other members of the far-right group were charged Monday with incendiary conspiracy in connection with the January 2021 storming of the Capitol, the most serious indictment in the Department of State’s comprehensive investigation. Justice to the attack.
The sedition charges against Mr. Tarrio and his co-defendants — Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — came in an amended suit that was unsealed in the Federal District Court in Washington. The men had already been charged in a previous indictment filed in March of conspiracy to obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which took place during a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021.
It was not immediately clear what evidence led to the new charges against the members of the Proud Boys, who were central to the attempt to storm the Capitol and help prevent the defeat of President Donald J. Trump.
Another Proud Boy lieutenant originally charged with the men, Charles Donohoe, pleaded guilty in April and is cooperating with the government’s investigation into the group. Around the time of Tarrio’s arrest this spring, federal investigators searched the homes — and seized the phones — of three other senior Proud Boys identified as unindicted co-conspirators in the case, but none of them have been publicly charged.
An inflammatory conspiracy charge requires prosecutors to prove that force was used to overthrow the government or disrupt the implementation of federal law.
The only other defendants in the Capitol riot investigation who have so far endured an incendiary conspiracy are Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, and 10 of his subordinates. Prosecutors say Mr. Rhodes led a conspiracy to forcibly stop the lawful transition of presidential power by sending men to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and by establishing a heavily armed “rapid response force” outside Washington that was willing to act quickly. to help shoot their fellow countrymen at the building.
Unlike Mr. rhodes was mr. Tarrio not in Washington on January 6. He had been ordered to leave the city two days earlier by a local judge after he was accused of burning a Black Lives Matter banner at a church during an outburst of violence that followed another pro-Trump demonstration in December.
Federal prosecutors have said that while Mr. Tarrio was not charged with “physical participation in the Capitol breach,” he nevertheless “led the planning and kept in touch with other members of the Proud Boys” during the storming of the Capitol. the building.
For example, prosecutors have alleged that prior to the attack, Mr Tarrio ordered members of the group to leave behind their traditional black and yellow polo shirts and remain “incognito” when they arrived in Washington on Jan. 6. Tarrio also helped create a “command and control structure” for the group through a private group chat from Telegram, the Ministry of Self-defense, prosecutors say.
As the Capitol riots unfolded, Mr. Tarrio to take credit for the role of the Proud Boys in what happened. “We did this,” he wrote at one point in the Telegram group chat.
Attorneys for Mr. Tarrio and the other men have repeatedly argued that there is no evidence that they conspired in advance to storm the Capitol. By setting up a “Department of Self-Defense” group chat and taking other measures, such as purchasing protective gear, the Proud Boys were simply trying to arm themselves against left-wing activists they had previously fought with at previous events in Washington, the officials said. lawyers .
The Proud Boys will also be featured when the House committee investigating Jan. 6 holds its first public hearing Thursday night. The commission plans to provide live testimony from Nick Quested, a documentary filmmaker involved with the group during the riots, and Caroline Edwards, a Capitol police officer who was injured in an attack earlier that day, allegedly caused by the Proud Boys.
