Proud Boys Found Guilty of Seditious Conspiracy
Will Donald Trump be next?
By Julie Kelly
May 4, 2023
A federal jury on Thursday found four members of the Proud Boys guilty of seditious conspiracy and other charges in the Justice Department’s most high-profile trial related to the events of January 6, 2021.
After six days of deliberation, jurors convicted Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Zachary Rehl of seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The jury deadlocked on those two counts for a fifth defendant, Dominic Pezzola. All five were found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging any duties, obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder, and one count of destruction of government property.
Pezzola was found guilty of assaulting or impeding law enforcement and robbery. (He took a police riot shield during the melee.) Jurors are still debating additional counts related to destruction of property and assaulting law enforcement; it’s unclear how Judge Tim Kelly will instruct the jury to proceed on unresolved charges.
Jury deliberations began April 26; the nearly four-month trial was marred by controversy, including last-minute disclosures of numerous FBI informants; open hostility between the judge and defense attorneys; the accidental discovery of explosive messages between FBI agents discussing deleted evidence, a doctored report, and the surveillance of attorney-client jailhouse communications; multiple sightings in evidence of the still-uncharged Ray Epps; a convoluted appellate ruling on the legitimacy of a key charge in the case; and suspicions of a jury stalker.
Until 2022, no American had been convicted of the post-Civil War statute. But Joe Biden’s Justice Department seized on the law’s vague language—the same manner in which top officials weaponized an untested post-Enron evidence tampering felony—to criminalize political dissent. Six members of the Oath Keepers were found guilty of seditious conspiracy at two separate trials and four other defendants, including one member of the Proud Boys, have pleaded guilty to the offense. Both seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding are felonies punishable by up to 20 years in prison each.
Most of the government’s evidence consisted of inflammatory text messages posted in group chats, which included the presence of an unknown number of FBI informants. No defendant was accused of bringing weapons to the Capitol or assaulting a police officer. Tarrio, the group’s leader, was in a Baltimore hotel on January 6, having left Washington under court order following his arrest on January 4, 2021 for an unrelated incident.
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https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/04/proud-boys-guilty-of-seditious-conspiracy-other-january-6-related-offenses/
