WASHINGTON – A former member of the far-right Proud Boys extremist workforce who smashed a window on the U.S. Capitol in the development’s first breach of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot used to be sentenced on Friday to 10 years in jail — and then defiantly declared as he walked out of the court docket, “Trump won!”
The sentence for Dominic Pezzola is the most recent passed down after leaders of the crowd have been convicted of spearheading an assault geared toward combating the non violent switch of energy from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.
Pezzola, 46, took a police officer’s rebel defend and used it to damage the window, permit rioters to make the primary breach into the Capitol, and he later filmed a “celebratory video” with a cigar throughout the development, prosecutors mentioned. He used to be a up to date Proud Boys recruit, on the other hand, and a jury acquitted him of essentially the most high-profile price, seditious conspiracy, a hardly introduced Civil War-era offense. He used to be convicted of alternative critical fees, and prosecutors had requested for 20 years in jail.
“He was an enthusiastic foot soldier,” prosecutor Erik Kenerson said.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly noted that Pezzola, of Rochester, New York, was a newcomer to the group who didn’t write the kind of increasingly violent online messages that his co-defendants did leading up to the Jan. 6 attack. Still, he was in some ways a “tip of the spear” in permitting rioters to get into the Capitol, the pass judgement on mentioned.
“The reality is you smashed that window in and let people begin to stream into the Capitol building and threaten the lives of our lawmakers,” the judge told Pezzola. “It’s not something that I ever dreamed I would have seen in our country.”
Defense lawyers had requested for 5 years for Pezzola, pronouncing that he were given “caught up in the craziness” that day.
Pezzola testified at trial that he firstly grabbed the officer’s defend to offer protection to himself from police rebel keep watch over measures, and his attorneys argued that he broke just one pane of glass and that it used to be different rioters who smashed out the remainder of the window.
He advised the pass judgement on that he needed he’d by no means crossed right into a limited house on Jan. 6, and he apologized to the officer whose defend he took. “There is no place in my future for groups or politics whatsoever,” he mentioned.
But later, as he left the court docket, he raised a fist and mentioned, “Trump won!”
Another Proud Boy, former bankruptcy president Ethan Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, could also be set to be sentenced Friday. Prosecutor are asking the pass judgement on to condemn him to 27 years.
Two in their co-defendants have been sentenced Thursday to a few the longest jail phrases passed down but in the Jan. 6 assault. Joseph Biggs, an organizer from Ormond Beach, Florida, were given 17 years, and Zachary Rehl, a pacesetter of the Philadelphia bankruptcy, were given 15 years.
The best profile defendant in the monthslong trial, former best Proud Boys chief Enrique Tarrio, is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday. His sentencing used to be moved from Wednesday to next week since the pass judgement on used to be ill.
The Proud Boys’ trial laid naked far-right extremists’ embody of lies by Trump, a Republican, that the 2020 election used to be stolen from him.
More than 1,100 other people had been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 600 of them had been convicted and sentenced.
The longest Jan. 6-related jail sentence to this point used to be 18 years for (*6*), founder any other far-right extremist workforce, the Oath Keepers. Six individuals of that anti-government workforce additionally have been convicted of seditious conspiracy after a separate trial final yr.