Ex-Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio Found Guilty of Seditious Conspiracy Over Jan. 6th Attack

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, was found guilty on Thursday – alongside three other members of the far-right, pro-Trump extremist group – of seditious conspiracy related to their roles surrounding the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Tarrio, 29, faced a 10-count indictment, including charges of “conspiring to oppose by force the lawful transition of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election, conspiring to obstruct Congress’s confirmation of the election result, and actually obstructing the joint session of Congress,” reported the Washington Post.

Federal prosecutors argued before the jury that the Proud Boys viewed themselves as then President Donald Trump’s private “army,” encouraged by the president’s call for the neo-fascist, male chauvinist group to “stand back and stand by” during a September 2020 presidential debate. Defense attorneys had signaled a desire to call Trump to testify during the trial related to his December 19th, 2020 tweet asking his supporters to come to Washington, DC on Jan. 6th, writing, “Be there. Will be wild.”

Tarrio and his co-defendants face up to 20 years in prison for each seditious conspiracy and obstruction charge.

CNN’s Katelyn Polantz broke down the verdict on air, reporting, “Well, four Proud Boys leaders have been found guilty by a jury of seditious conspiracy in a major case that the Justice Department brought after January 6th.”

“Those include Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, who was not in Washington, D.C. on January 6th. So that makes him very unique among many of the January 6th defendants. But the jury has found that the government proved that these men wanted to overthrow the US government or hinder it somehow by force,” she continued, adding:

The four men convicted, the four men found guilty by the jury today. And Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, as well as Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs, Zachary Rehl. Those are the leaders of this group. And the Justice Department is accusing them of planning coming together and then moving on January six in a way that essentially, in the prosecutor’s words, was trying to start a war in the United States.

Tarrio’s guilty verdict is the third major trial in which Jan. 6th defendants were found guilty of seditious conspiracy. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was also found guilty on similar charges in November of 2022.

This story has been updated with additional information