The Justice Department under Biden advocates for longer jail terms—between 10 and 22 years—for Proud Boys charged in the January 6 instances.
Justice Department prosecutors have appealed the sentences of former leader Enrique Tarrio and members Zachary Rehl, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Dominic Pezzolo. The notice of appeal was sent on Monday.
Prosecutors initially asked for 33-year jail terms for Tarrio, 30-year sentences for Rehl, 27-year sentences for Nordean, 33-year sentences for Biggs, and 20-year sentences for Pezzola.
District Judge Tim Kelly, a choice of former president Donald Trump, gave the defendants in the seditious conspiracy case severe punishments. Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison, Rehl to 15 years, Nordean to 18 years, and Biggs to 17 years. Pezzola received a ten-year prison term after being found not guilty of the seditious conspiracy counts against him but guilty of other offenses.
The DOJ’s appeal, according to Biggs and Rehl’s defense counsel Norm Pattis, is “ridiculous,” the Associated Press reports.
“Merrick Garland needs a new hobby horse,” stated Pattis.
Back in August, Pattis argued that the punishment was excessively severe.
“The defendants are not terrorists,” he emphasized. “Whatever excesses of zeal they demonstrated on January 6, 2021, and no matter how grave the potential interference with the orderly transfer of power due to the events of that day, a decade or more behind bars is an excessive punishment.”
Nordean’s lawyer, Nicholas Smith, said that his client is “encouraged by the government’s admission that errors led to his conviction and sentence.”
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In court documents, DOJ prosecutors have asserted the following about the Proud Boys members: “”They unleashed a force on the Capitol that was calculated to exert their political will on elected officials by force and to undo the results of a democratic election,” In court documents, DOJ prosecutors have made statements about the Proud Boys members. “The foot soldiers of the right aimed to keep their leader in power. They failed. They are not heroes; they are criminals.”
On January 6, the Department of Justice appealed the conviction and sentence of Oath Keepers’ founder for seditious conspiracy. Despite the prosecution’s request for a 25-year sentence, founder Stewart Rhodes received an 18-year sentence.
Patty Hartman, supervising public affairs specialist for the District of Columbia United States Attorney’s Office, reportedly told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the Department of Justice is “merely preserving our right to appeal.”
Federal charges have been brought against more than 1,100 people for their participation in the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021. The DOJ’s ground-breaking inquiry is the biggest in American history.
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