The leader of the far-right militia Proud Boys Joe Biggs was sentenced this Thursday to 17 years in prison for seditious conspiracy in the context of the attacks on the US Capitol on January 6, 2020. Biggs, a US Army veteran who was injured while serving in Iraq and later worked for conspiracy website Infowars, he was convicted in May on seditious conspiracy and other charges.
District Judge Timothy Kelly argued that while he did not want to “minimize” the violence that had taken place in those days, it was necessary to take stock There must be no major differences between the sentences of the accused, as collected by CNN. “I’m done with everything. I’m sick of the fight between left and right“Biggs said during the trial that he wanted to apologize and affirmed that he was not a ‘terrorist,'” according to NBC News.
The public prosecutor had initially demanded a prison sentence of 33 years. The trial, which lasted nearly a month, presented evidence that Biggs and other defendants, including Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Enrique Tarrio, conspired and encouraged violence before the attack. According to records from the day, members of the Proud Boys continued to be at the forefront of attacks on overwhelmed Capitol police officers, Nordean, Biggs and Rehl took a backseat, allowing others to lead the attack to join later.
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, another militia involved in the riots during the attack, was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy, the highest sentence imposed for those events.
