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   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
   Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean gets 18 years in prison, tying for longest   
   sentence in Jan. 6 attack   
      
      
      
   A one-time leader in the Proud Boys far-right extremist group has been   
   sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the   
   U.S. Capitol, tying the record for the longest sentence in the attack.   
      
   Ethan Nordean was "the undisputed leader on the ground on Jan 6," said   
   prosecutor Jason McCullough. Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence   
   the Seattle-area chapter president to 27 years.   
      
   Nordean, of Auburn, Wash., was one of several members convicted of   
   spearheading an attack on the Capitol to try to prevent the peaceful   
   transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020   
   presidential election. He was convicted of seditious conspiracy and other   
   serious charges.   
      
   Defence attorneys pushed back against the idea that Nordean was more   
   responsible for the attack than others and denied that there was any plan   
   to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.   
      
   The highest-profile Proud Boys member convicted after that months-long   
   trial, former top leader Enrique Tarrio, is scheduled to be sentenced   
   Tuesday.   
      
      
   Nordean's sentencing comes after Dominic Pezzola, a former Proud Boy   
   member who smashed a window at the U.S. Capitol that day, was sentenced to   
   10 years in prison.   
      
   Pezzola, 46, took a police officer's riot shield and used it to smash the   
   window, allowing rioters to make the first breach into the Capitol. He   
   later filmed a "celebratory video" with a cigar inside the building,   
   prosecutors said.   
      
   He was a recent Proud Boys recruit, however, and a jury acquitted him of   
   the most high-profile charge, seditious conspiracy, a rarely brought Civil   
   War-era offence. He was convicted of other serious charges, and   
   prosecutors had asked for 20 years in prison.   
      
   "He was an enthusiastic foot soldier," prosecutor Erik Kenerson said.   
      
   U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly noted that Pezzola, of Rochester, N.Y.,   
   was a newcomer to the group who didn't write the kind of increasingly   
   violent online messages that his co-defendants did leading up to the Jan.   
   6 attack.   
      
   Still, he was in some ways a "tip of the spear" in allowing rioters to get   
   into the Capitol, said the judge, who decided to apply a terrorism   
   enhancement to the sentence.   
   One man carries a police riot shield while another man raises his fist in   
   the air while walking through a large, ornate room.   
   Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola, centre, holding a police shield, is seen inside   
   the Capitol building in Washington, on Jan. 6, 2021. (Manuel Balce   
   Ceneta/The Associated Press)   
      
   "The reality is you smashed that window in and let people begin to stream   
   into the Capitol building and threaten the lives of our lawmakers," Kelly   
   told Pezzola. "It's not something that I ever dreamed I would have seen in   
   our country."   
      
   Defence lawyers had asked for five years for Pezzola, saying that he got   
   "caught up in the craziness" that day.   
      
   Pezzola testified at trial that he originally grabbed the officer's shield   
   to protect himself from police riot control measures, and his lawyers   
   argued that he broke only one pane of glass and that it was other rioters   
   who smashed out the rest of the window.   
      
   He told the judge that he wished he'd never crossed into a restricted area   
   on Jan. 6, and he apologized to the officer whose shield he took. "There   
   is no place in my future for groups or politics whatsoever," he said.   
      
   But later, as he left the courtroom, he raised a fist and said, "Trump   
   won!"   
      
       Ex-Proud Boys leader Zachary Rehl sentenced to 15 years in prison   
      
       Proud Boys leader, members convicted of seditious conspiracy in U.S.   
   Capitol attack   
      
   Two other Proud Boys were sentenced on Thursday. Joseph Biggs, an   
   organizer from Ormond Beach, Fla., received a 17-year term, and Zachary   
   Rehl, a leader of the Philadelphia chapter, got 15 years.   
      
   The Proud Boys' trial laid bare far-right extremists' embrace of lies by   
   Trump, a Republican, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.   
      
   More than 1,100 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal   
   crimes. More than 600 have been convicted and sentenced.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)