On Thursday, four Proud Boys members, including former leader Enrique Tarrio, were found guilty of seditious conspiracy for planning to use a violent mob to attack the Capitol and keep former President Donald J. Trump in power after his election defeat.
While the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the sedition charge for one of the defendants, Dominic Pezzola, he was still convicted of other serious felonies. The verdicts came after seven days of deliberations in Washington’s Federal District Court and marked a significant setback for one of the nation’s most infamous far-right groups.
It was also another milestone in the Justice Department’s extensive investigation into the Capitol attack. This trial was the last of three major sedition cases that federal prosecutors brought against key figures in the attack. The rarely-used sedition charge was also utilized in two other trials against nine members of the Oath Keepers militia, with six of those defendants, including founder and leader Stewart Rhodes, being found guilty of sedition. The other defendants were found guilty of other serious felonies.
The convicted defendants, including Tarrio and Pezzola, along with Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Zachary Rehl, will now await sentencing. The Proud Boys had been on the FBI’s radar since shortly after the January 6 attack, and the defendants were arrested in a series of arrests starting in January 2021. More than 20 other members of the group, hailing from chapters spanning New York to Hawaii, were also charged in separate cases related to the Capitol attack.
