WASHINGTON (CN) — A self-described Proud Boys organizer who was influential in breaking multiple police lines and leading rioters into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced on Thursday to 17 years in prison, the second-longest term of any Jan. 6 defendant to date.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly called Joseph Biggs, 39, an influential member of the crowd that tore down fencing outside the Capitol and brought “an entire branch of government to heel.”
The Trump-appointed judge's decision came in well under the 33 years requested by the Justice Department, and below the sentencing guidelines for the crimes Biggs was found guilty of.
Kelly explained that while he decided to apply a so-called “terrorism enhancement” to the sentence, he found Biggs had no intent to cause a mass casualty event, and therefore could vary downward. However, he wanted to impose a sentence on par with the seriousness of Biggs' and his co-defendants' outsized role in the riot.
In May, a trial jury convicted Biggs on six counts: conspiracy to obstruct and obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to interfere with an officer’s duties, civil disorder, destruction of government property and the rare, Civil War-era seditious conspiracy charge.
Biggs and his co-defendants — Enrique Tarrio, Zachary Rehl, Ethan Nordean and Dominic Pezzola — were the latest among the rioters to be convicted of seditious conspiracy. In November 2022 two leaders of the Oath Keepers extremist group, founder Stewart Rhodes and Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs, were found guilty of the same charge.
Rhodes in May received the longest Capitol riot sentence yet, 18 years in prison, while Meggs was sentenced to 12 years.
During Thursday’s hearing, Biggs apologized for his actions and tried to emphasize the fact he did not directly assault anyone during the riot.
“I’m not a violent person … I was seduced by the crowd, my curiosity got the better of me and I have to live with that for the rest of my life,” Biggs said. “I’m not a terrorist, I don’t have hate in my heart, I don’t want to hurt people.”
Biggs, Nordean, Rehl and Pezzola led one of the first charges against police officers near the Peace Circle, located between the Capitol building and the National Mall, which involved “throwing aside bike racks and laying waste to anything that stood in their path,” according to the government’s sentencing memorandum.
Their destruction continued up the Capitol steps, where they repeatedly pushed back and clashed with police officers, until Pezzola broke a window and Biggs followed right behind, leading the first rioters into the building.
Justice Department attorney Jason McCullough argued Biggs’ and the other Proud Boys' actions marked a pivotal moment in U.S. history as he helped lead American citizens to “cross the Rubicon” and initiate a direct attack on American democracy.
“There’s a reason why we will hold our collective breaths as we approach future elections,” McCullough said. “They pushed us to the edge of a Constitutional crisis.”
In the wake of the riot, Biggs memorialized Jan. 6, saying it “will go down in infamy.”
He gave interviews where he called the riot a “warning shot” that showed government officials “how weak they truly are” after being “bitch-slapped … on their own home turf.”
Defense attorney Norman Pattis, of the Connecticut-based firm Pattis & Smith, threw blame toward the Oath Keepers who brought weapons to hotels just outside Washington, plotting to start a “bloody revolution” to try and overthrow the government.
Pattis noted his client made no similar plans and said he shouldn't receive a sentence higher than those who did.
Kelly applied the terrorism enhancement to Biggs’ destruction of property conviction. By tearing down a black fence outside the Capitol, Biggs had a central role in causing further clashes with police and worked to intimidate members of Congress, ultimately halting the 2020 presidential election certification.
The judge noted that unlike other cases where judges have decide to apply the enhancement — including Rhodes' May sentencing by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta — this one involved destruction of property, an offense Congress has specifically identified as warranting the enhancement.
“Whether it applies," Kelly said, "really don’t think it’s a close call.”
Following Biggs' hearing, Rehl, the president of the group's Philadelphia chapter who helped Biggs and other Proud Boys breach police lines and sprayed a police officer with pepper spray, was sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday afternoon. His sentence is the third-longest, behind Rhodes and Biggs.
Justice Department prosecutors had requested Rehl be ordered to 30 years in prison.
Kelly said it's unlikely he'll ever again in his career order another sentence 15 years below both the prosecutors' request and the sentencing guidelines.
Before passing down his decision, Kelly pointed both to the fact Rehl had used pepper spray against a police officer and then lied about it at trial, and to statements he made after Jan. 6 saying he wished he and the other rioters had brought weapons and "taken the country back the right way."
"I mean, my god. That's the offense and, to put it mildly, it's a bad one," Kelly said.
An emotional Rehl testified about his regret for falling “hook, line and sinker” for false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen, and for his actions that day.
“January 6 was a despicable day, and while it was out of character, I was still there and I regret every day because of it,” Rehl said.
He was convicted on the same six counts as Biggs — including seditious conspiracy — and was found to have committed perjury while testifying during his trial. Justice Department attorney Erik Kenerson said that, according to the government’s count, Rehl denied 15 times that he had pepper sprayed an officer.
Just as he did for Biggs, Kelly decided to apply the terrorism enhancement to Rehl’s sentence. He will determine whether to apply the enhancement to the three remaining defendants, Nordean, Pezzola and Tarrio at their sentencing hearings on Friday and next Tuesday, Sept. 5.
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