WASHINGTON – FBI agents arrested two Proud Boys organizers in Philadelphia and North Carolina, and prosecutors filed new charges against two other prominent members of the far-right group in Florida and Washington state as federal authorities continued their crackdown. to your leadership ranks. three police officers said on Wednesday.
With the new conspiracy charge, prosecutors have now filed charges against a total of 13 people identified in court documents as members of the Proud Boys. Federal investigators described the group, which appeared in Washington on Jan. 6, as one of the main instigators of the Capitol riot that left five dead, including a Capitol police officer.
In the indictment, prosecutors accused Charles Donohoe, a leader of the North Carolina Proud Boys, and Zach Rehl, the group’s chapter president in Philadelphia, of conspiring to interfere with police officers on Capitol Hill and obstruct President Biden’s election victory certification. . Two other high-ranking Proud Boys who were already facing similar charges – Ethan Nordean from Auburn, Wash., And Joseph Biggs from Ormond Beach, Florida – were also implicated as part of the conspiracy.
The FBI declined to comment.
The Proud Boys, who have emerged in recent years as some of former President Donald J. Trump’s most expressive and violent supporters, describe themselves as “Western chauvinists” and have a history of bloody street fights with left-wing anti-fascist activists. These clashes intensified last year during protests across the country over George Floyd’s death at the hands of the police in Minneapolis. During a presidential debate in September, Mr. Trump refused to repudiate the Proud Boys, telling them, instead, at a widely watched time, to “stay put”
Although the Proud Boys managed to avoid federal scrutiny, that changed after the January 6 riot. The FBI began to aggressively investigate members of the group involved in the Capitol attack. Agents scoured homes across the country, scoured social media accounts and investigated the private communications of Proud Boys leaders. Group members have been charged in four conspiracy cases, charged with crimes, including threatening a federal official and destroying government property.
The new conspiracy case was the latest product of efforts to prosecute the Proud Boys. Investigators said Biggs, 37, and Nordean, 30, equipped with radios and megaphones, led a crowd of about 100 members and supporters of the group that marched through the streets of Washington on January 6 chanting slogans and ultimately violated the security barriers on the Capitol. Some Proud Boys were the first rowdies to break windows and enter the building, confronting the police inside.
Biggs, a former Army sergeant, was released from custody pending trial shortly after his arrest in January, and his case has been in a kind of legal block for weeks. Nordean was released from custody on March 3 after the chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington agreed with his lawyers that the evidence that he was responsible for helping and encouraging the violence and destruction of property committed by his colleagues Proud Boys on Capitol Hill it was – at least at that point – relatively weak.
Rehl, 35, calls himself one of the most prominent representatives of the Proud Boys on the East Coast and has led the group’s division in Philadelphia since at least 2018, according to federal officials. This summer, he and other Proud Boys were seen socializing with local police outside a Philadelphia police union.