Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio Gets 22 Years In Prison, Social Media Reacts
Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio Sentenced To 22 Years For Jan 6 Involvement & He Wasn’t Even There, Social Media Celebrates
Source: Robert Nickelsberg / Getty
But Kelly said that while Tarrio may not have been present at the Capitol during the attack, the Proud Boys leader “had an outsized impact on the events of the day. “
While the 22-year sentence is the longest for any January 6 defendant, the Justice Department had sought 33 years in prison for Tarrio.
Kelly had consistently gone far below previous Justice Department sentencing requests for Proud Boys members convicted in this case.
Kelly sentenced Ethan Nordean and Joseph Biggs, two of the far-right organization’s top lieutenants, to 18- and 17-year prison sentences, respectively. Zachary Rehl, a local Proud Boys chapter leader, was sentenced to 15 years behind bars, while Dominic Pezzola, a low-level member and the only defendant acquitted of the seditious conspiracy charge, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
“It is kind of hard to put into words how important the peaceful transfer of power is,” Kelly said. “Our country was founded as an experiment in self-government by the people, but it cannot long endure if the way we elect our leaders is threatened with force and violence.”
“Mr. Tarrio was the ultimate leader, the ultimate person who organized, who was motivated by revolutionary zeal,” the judge continued, adding that Tarrio has shown “no remorse.”
To be fair, Tarrio did show remorse before sentencing by essentially disavowing everything he previously stood for and promising the court he would have “nothing to do with politics, groups, activism or rallies” from now on.
“I have always tried to hold myself to a higher standard, and I failed,” Tarrio said. “I held myself morally above others, and this trial has shown me how wrong I was.”
He then told Kelly that he “spent the last year and a half trying to figure out how I ended up at this podium.”
“On November 3, 2020, something that I never expected happened – my candidate lost,” he continued. “I felt like something was personally stolen from me. Every media channel that I turned to told me I was justified.”
Nah, bruh, don’t try to blame Fox News, Newsmax, and the other conservative propaganda sites that pretend to be news networks now. You don’t get to claim to distrust the “fake news” media and then blame the media for influencing your actions. YOU believed Trump’s unbelievable and evidence-deficient nonsense, and YOU plotted a coup against democracy as a result.
Still, it’s wild that all of those (mostly white) people who actually participated in the Jan. 6 riot have received far more lenient penalties than Tarrio, who, again, wasn’t even there.
But, hey, that’s the America he was fighting for, right? See how social media is reacting to his sentence below.
