“I was looking and seeking what the plea offer would look like, right?” Tarrio mentioned in a cellphone interview with The Washington Post from the D.C. jail. “They didn’t want to give me a number,” he mentioned, referring to a potential jail sentence. “I need a number. To me the most important thing is when I get home to my family.”
Instead, Tarrio mentioned, the prosecutors requested him what position Donald Trump performed in getting the Proud Boys to assault the Capitol. He mentioned the prosecutors, accompanied by FBI brokers within the Miami jail the place Tarrio was being held on the time, confirmed him messages he exchanged with a second particular person, who in flip was related to a 3rd particular person, who was related to Trump. Tarrio mentioned he informed the investigators he didn’t know the third particular person. He refused to title the individuals who prosecutors mentioned allegedly related him to Trump. Ultimately, the almost five-month trial didn’t join the Proud Boys to the then-president, past Trump’s seeming endorsement of the group in a presidential debate within the fall of 2020 wherein he informed them to “stand back and stand by.” The televised feedback brought on Proud Boys membership to spike, in accordance to testimony at trial.
“They weren’t trying to get the truth,” Tarrio mentioned. “They were trying to coerce me into signing something that’s not true.”
Roughly two months later, Tarrio, 39, and 4 different members of the Proud Boys went on trial in federal court docket in Washington, the place he and three of his lieutenants have been convicted of not solely seditious conspiracy but in addition obstructing an official continuing. Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years for his management position within the group, the longest sentence but imposed on anybody concerned within the Jan. 6 riot.
Prosecutors meet with defendants earlier than trials on a regular basis in hopes of getting cooperation, new data and one much less defendant to face in court docket. The U.S. legal professional’s workplace in Washington declined to touch upon any pre-trial conferences with Tarrio. Trump has been charged with making an attempt to subvert the election outcomes, however not particularly with inciting the Jan. 6 riot. He has denied any involvement with the riot.
Tarrio renewed his declare that he mustn’t have been charged with or convicted of main what one choose referred to as “the tip of the spear” of the Jan. 6 riot, wherein one of many Proud Boys was filmed utilizing a police defend to smash a Capitol window, enabling one of many first breaches of the constructing. “I don’t suppose what Dominic Pezzola did was proper,” Tarrio mentioned of his co-defendant, who acquired a 10-year sentence partly for breaking the window. “I think it’s terrible what happened that day.”
Tarrio had been arrested on Jan. 4, 2021, as he was arriving within the metropolis, for beforehand burning a Black Lives Matter banner, and was given a pre-trial order to keep out of town. He mentioned police seized his cellphone then, and after he was launched from jail on Jan. 5, he purchased a burner cellphone however was unable to activate it. He spent Jan. 6 at a lodge in Baltimore.
Tarrio mentioned he thought there was merely going to be a rally on Jan. 6, and now that he might not communicate at numerous occasions that day, “I don’t know what instructions I would give somebody at that point…I’m not speaking. I have no function. So there was no communication.” But he did publish on the social media platform Parler through the riot, writing “Don’t f-ing leave” whereas the Proud Boys have been contained in the Capitol. U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly reminded him of that greater than as soon as throughout his sentencing listening to final week.
If there was no intent to assault the Capitol, then why did the Proud Boys march away from Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally lengthy earlier than Trump ever spoke? Tarrio mentioned he didn’t know. He mentioned the group wouldn’t have entered the Capitol if he have been there, and that he didn’t consider the election had been stolen, although he was keen to help his members.
Fellow Proud Boys Joe Biggs and Ethan Nordean, as well as to Tarrio, have been members of a Telegram message group referred to as “Ministry of Self-Defense,” so named as a result of 4 Proud Boys had been stabbed as they marched by means of Washington in December 2020. Tarrio claimed he didn’t know that the stabbings have been in self-defense till he watched a video of the incident at trial. Biggs and Nordean led the group on Jan. 6 in Tarrio’s absence.
But the “MOSD” chat was full of indignant rhetoric and requires revolution, and Tarrio was an energetic member there, telling members not to put on the group’s typical black and gold colours to the District and invoking the American revolution of 1776. Trial testimony confirmed he helped recruit and choose a smaller group of Proud Boys to journey to Washington on Jan. 6. Judge Kelly mentioned the “conspiracy ended up with about 200 men amped up for battle, encircling the Capitol, physically led by his co-defendants and a group of men that were seemingly present and played a role in so many of the important breaches of the day.”
Tarrio didn’t take the stand in his personal protection at trial, so the jury by no means heard from him. He mentioned he feared prosecutors can be allowed to broadly query him about different issues, such because the prior Proud Boys rallies, “where I was going to be disliked more than I already was by the jury.”
Tarrio mentioned prosecutors in Miami final fall didn’t ask him about Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant who was an acquaintance of Tarrio, or Ali Alexander, a promoter of the “Stop the Steal” rally. He mentioned the federal guests didn’t ask him any questions on his information of Jan. 6 past the theorized connection to Trump. “There was never an open-ended question after that,” Tarrio mentioned.
Prosecutors did later provide Tarrio a deal; 9 to 11 years in jail if he pleaded responsible to seditious conspiracy, in accordance to court docket information. Tarrio declined.
Judge Kelly reminded Tarrio that the Capitol suffered greater than $2 million in damages and about 140 officers have been harm on Jan. 6. “They are heroes and they do deserve a debt of thanks from all of us,” Kelly mentioned.
“Mr. Tarrio was the ultimate leader of that conspiracy,” the choose mentioned, summarizing the trial proof. “I don’t really think this is super debatable.” He referred to as Tarrio “the ultimate leader, the ultimate person who organized, who was motivated by revolutionary zeal.”
