U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly began handing down sentences for “Proud Boy” defendants convicted in the turmoil of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Joseph Biggs, who led dozens of demonstrators at the Capitol, was given a 17-year sentence by the judge on Aug. 31. Two more Proud Boy activists were sentenced to a combined 28 years on Friday. Ethan Nordean, the leader of a Seattle chapter, was given an 18-year sentence, and Dominic Pezzola was sentenced to 10 years.
The latest sentence came down on Tuesday for Proud Boy Chairman Enrique Tarrio.
Federal prosecutors used terrorist enhancements to extend the convicts’ sentences over a riot where the only fatal victims were pro-Trump demonstrators. Biggs’ 17-year stay was enhanced over the defendant’s destruction of a fence on Capitol grounds.
😡 Proud Boys member Joe Biggs got 17 years for doing this to a bike rack in DC.
Antifa and BLM did the same, burned down buildings, and tried to kill people yet weren’t prosecuted.
TWO-TIERED JUSTICE!!pic.twitter.com/oVM0Yor1n5
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) September 1, 2023
Judge Kelly justified the lengthy prison terms during his court address to Nordean and Pezzola by declaring the Capitol riot a “national disgrace.”
The decades-long prison sentences, however, represent a radical departure from how domestic terrorists were treated after far-left revolutionaries catalyzed the most destructive explosion of civil unrest in decades. The riots for social justice that became routine throughout 2020 cost more than 66 times the inflated estimates of the Capitol carnage. That’s just accounting
