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A Proud Boy from Florida who went on the lam after being convicted of utilizing pepper spray on cops through the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced on Thursday to 10 years in jail.
The Proud Boy, Christopher Worrell, was discovered responsible at a bench trial in Federal District Courtroom in Washington in Might on costs of assault, civil dysfunction and the obstruction of an official continuing for his function within the Capitol assault. Prosecutors stated that Mr. Worrell, 52, arrived in Washington on Jan. 6 “prepared for battle” and carrying physique armor, and with different members of the far-right group “performed a pivotal function in collapsing the police line on the west entrance, resulting in the primary breach of the Capitol constructing.”
The Proud Boys, who’ve lengthy been a few of former President Donald J. Trump’s most vocal and violent supporters, had been on the forefront of the violence on Jan. 6, pushing by way of barricades and inspiring others within the mob to assault the police and storm the Capitol, the place lawmakers had gathered to certify the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election.
Dozens of members of the group had been investigated by the F.B.I., and lots of both pleaded responsible or had been delivered to trial in Washington. 4 of them, together with the Proud Boys’ former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, had been convicted final spring on costs of seditious conspiracy.
Prosecutors stated that Mr. Worrell, a member of the “Hurricane Coast” chapter of the Proud Boys, began to encourage a violent response to Mr. Trump’s loss within the election properly earlier than Jan. 6. On the encrypted app Telegram, he wrote his fellow Proud Boys messages saying issues like “Resist Like It’s 1776” and “Bear in mind George Washington attacked and saved the Union on Christmas Eve.”
Mr. Worrell arrived in Washington with a half-dozen different Proud Boys, prosecutors stated, and on the morning of Jan. 6 joined a bigger contingent of the group on the Washington Monument carrying physique armor, ear protectors and a GoPro-style video digital camera. He additionally carried two canisters of Sabre Crimson Most Energy Pepper Gel, prosecutors stated.
Not lengthy after the Capitol’s perimeter was breached, Mr. Worrell and different Proud Boys marched in what prosecutors referred to as “a coordinated stack formation” onto the Capitol grounds. Movies from the day captured Mr. Worrell shouting, “Trump is coming to the Capitol.”
Finally, Mr. Worrell used his pepper spray on a bunch of cops, permitting a portion of the mob to surge up stairs exterior the Capitol and turn out to be among the first rioters to interrupt into the constructing.
When Mr. Worrell went on trial in Washington in April, he confirmed no regret for his actions, telling “falsehood after unimaginable falsehood in an effort to deflect accountability and solid himself as a hero intervening to guard the police” towards members of the leftist motion antifa, prosecutors stated.
In written notes about his verdict convicting Mr. Worrell, Decide Royce C. Lamberth referred to as Mr. Worrell’s rivalry that he had used the pepper spray on antifa members “preposterous,” and stated that the proof prosecutors launched demonstrated that Mr. Worrell had been on the Capitol that day “for the aim of guaranteeing that the Electoral Faculty certification of President Biden failed.”
In August, simply 4 days earlier than his preliminary date for sentencing, Mr. Worrell lower off his G.P.S. ankle monitor within the car parking zone of a Walmart and went on the run. He was in the end caught six weeks later at his house in Naples, Fla., and returned to Washington for a brand new sentencing listening to.
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