The charge adds two defendants to a criminal case already opened against Seattle Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean and Florida Proud Boys event organizer Joseph Biggs.
The conspiracy charge alleges that Zachary Rehl, 35, of Philadelphia, and Charles Donohoe, 33, of North Carolina, worked as local leaders of the Proud Boys alongside Biggs and Nordean to prepare high-tech paramilitary and communications equipment, to collect funds and encourage your ward group member rights to come to Washington.
Prosecutors say they also switched channels to encrypted messages with each other, leading to the pro-Trump rally and the Capitol invasion, and that the four men posted on social media and in encrypted chats about their pride in participating in the siege later. .
“I am proud of what we achieved yesterday, but we need to start planning and we are starting to plan a presidency for Biden,” Rehl said in a message after the siege, prosecutors said.
Further lawsuits for Nordean and Donohoe are scheduled for next week. Nordean and Biggs were released from prison pending trial.
More than a dozen Proud Boys – including several other leaders of the group – have already been accused of several cases of conspiracy and riots after the insurrection.
The Justice Department made it clear that unraveling the group’s coordination and stopping possible politically motivated violence in the future is a priority in the almost unprecedented investigation of domestic terrorism.
Prosecutors, in the new indictment made public on Friday, published challenging posts about the victory of Rehl’s Biden Electoral College and others in the weeks before January 6.
Prosecutors say the Proud Boys raised $ 5,500 in collective donations between December 30 and January 4.
The prosecution also points to a co-conspirator who was not charged with discussing Proud Boys teams in the week of the 6th, and a Proud Boys communication channel that mentions a “plan” on the day of the pro-Trump rally and violent march to the capital.
What prosecutors know about the Proud Boys’ president
Donohoe tried to transfer group members to a different encrypted message two days before the riot, fearing that the group’s communications would be exposed, prosecutors said in the indictment made public on Friday.
The Justice Department detail to illustrate how the group worked to supposedly execute a sophisticated capitol onslaught during the chaos.
Previously, prosecutors said in court that they believed the Proud Boys wanted Nordean to assume “powers of war” in Tarrio’s absence.
Tarrio was arrested two days before the siege, when he arrived in DC, for allegedly burning the church’s Black Lives Matter banner at a previous meeting in the city, and on gun charges. His arrest took him off the streets, with a court order to stay away from DC on January 6 and later. He pleaded not guilty.
After his arrest, Donohoe “expressed concern” that investigators would have access to Tarrio’s phone, prosecutors said. So he created a new encrypted message channel for him and other prominent members of the Proud Boys to use, “and took steps to destroy or ‘detonate’ the previous channel,” prosecutors wrote.
“Everything is compromised and we may be investigating Gang’s accusations,” Donohoe also wrote on encrypted message channels, according to the new accusation. “Stop everything immediately” and “This comes from above,” prosecutors say he wrote.