One of the leaders of the American group Proud Boys, Joseph Biggs, was sentenced this Thursday (31) to 17 years in prison for conspiring to try to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election in the United States.
Biggs and three other members of the Proud Boys, including their leader, Enrique Tarrio, had been found guilty in May of conspiring to commit sedition over the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, which took place while Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory was being certified.
In addition to Biggs and Tarrio, of Cuban origin, the other two members found guilty were Ethan Nordean and Zachary Rehl.
The prosecution had requested a sentence of 33 years in prison for Biggs. The sentence announced today is close to the 18-year sentence handed down in May against the founder of the Oath Keepers group, Stewart Rhodes, also for the invasion of the Capitol.
That sentence remains the largest issued against a defendant for the January 6, 2021 attack, the day that some 10,000 people – most of them supporters of then-President Donald Trump (2017-2021) – marched towards the Capitol and about 800 broke into the building. The raid resulted in five deaths and an estimated 140 officers injured.
Another defendant, along with Biggs and the three other Proud Boys, Dominic Pezzola, was cleared of sedition in May but found guilty of assault, resisting an official of authority and theft of government property.
The guilty plea came after a week of deliberations in federal court in Washington.
Throughout the process, prosecutors showed messages and videos posted by the defendants themselves and by other members of the group, calling for violence and revolution against the change in the presidency of the United States.
According to the prosecution, the messages spoke of the need for “war”, “revolution” and the execution of traitors.
The hearing to announce Nordean’s sentence is scheduled for this Friday (1st), while Tarrio’s should be handed down next Tuesday (5th).
US District Judge Timothy Kelly said Thursday in sentencing Biggs that the Constitution gives citizens “many important rights for which Americans fought and died” and stressed, according to broadcaster CNN, that the events of January 6 “broke the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.
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