The leader of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group has been arrested on a conspiracy charge for his suspected role in a co-ordinated attack on the US Capitol to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.
Proud Boys former chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was not there when the riot erupted on January 6 2021. Police had arrested him in Washington two days before the riot and charged him with vandalising a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic black church during a protest in December 2020.
The day before the Capitol was attacked, a judge ordered him to stay out of Washington. He later served a five-month sentence in that case.
But Tarrio did not leave town as he should have, the indictment said. Instead, he met Oath Keepers founder and leader Elmer “Stewart” Rhodes and others in an underground parking garage for approximately 30 minutes.
“During this encounter, a participant referenced the Capitol,” the indictment says.
The indictment is a further proof of how far the Justice Department is going to prosecute the leaders of extremist groups whose members are suspected to have planned and attacked the US Capitol, even if they were not in attendance themselves.
The new riot-related charges are among the most serious filed so far, but they are not the first of their kind. Eleven members or associates of the anti-government Oath Keepers militia group, including its founder and leader Stewart Rhodes, were charged on January 12 with seditious conspiracy over the Capitol attack.
More than three dozen people charged in connection with the Capitol siege have been identified by federal authorities as Proud Boys leaders, members or associates.
A New York man pleaded guilty in December to storming the US Capitol with fellow Proud Boys members.
Matthew Greene was the first member to publicly plead guilty to conspiring with other members to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote. He agreed to co-operate with authorities.
On the morning of January 6, Proud Boys members met at the Washington Monument and marched to the Capitol before then-president Donald Trump finished speaking to thousands of supporters near the White House.
Just before Congress convened a joint session to certify the election results, a group of Proud Boys followed a crowd of people who breached barriers at a pedestrian entrance to the Capitol grounds, an indictment says.
Several Proud Boys also entered the Capitol building after the mob smashed windows and forced open doors.
Prosecutors have said the Proud Boys arranged for members to communicate using specific frequencies on Baofeng radios. The Chinese-made devices can be programmed for use on hundreds of frequencies, making them difficult for outsiders to eavesdrop.
In December, a federal judge refused to dismiss an earlier indictment charging four alleged leaders of the Proud Boys with conspiracy.
US District Judge Timothy Kelly rejected defence lawyers’ arguments that Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Charles Donohoe were charged with conduct that is protected by the First Amendment right to free speech.
The four remain jailed while awaiting a trial scheduled for May.
Nordean, from Washington state, was a Proud Boys chapter president and member of the group’s national Elders Council, Biggs, of Florida, is a self-described Proud Boys organiser; Rehl was president of the Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia; and Donohoe, of North Carolina, also served as president of his local chapter, according to the indictment.
Proud Boys members describe the group as a politically incorrect men’s club for “western chauvinists”. Its members have frequently brawled with antifascist activists at rallies and protests.
Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, sued the Southern Poverty Law Centre for labelling it as a hate group.
