A member of the Proud Boys organization participates in a protest in support of US President Donald Trump in Washington DC (12/12/2020). Photo: Allison Dinner / ZUMA Wire / dpa / Europa Press.

The leader of the far-right organization Proud Boys in Seattle, Ethan Nordean, was sentenced Friday to 18 years in prison for the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Last May, after a four-month trial, Nordean and three other leaders of that nationalist group, including the leader, Enrique Tarrio, of Cuban origin, were found guilty of seditious conspiracy.

His sentence equals the highest issued so far against a defendant for the attack, the 18-year-old who received in May the founder of the also far-right group Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, also for the conspiracy for former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) to remain in the White House.

The Prosecutor's Office had requested 27 years in prison against him. Nordean, also known as Rufio Panman, was seen leading a group of protesters with a megaphone shortly before that revolt began, which tried to prevent the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's election victory over Trump in the 2020 election.

His verdict joins that of three other leaders or prominent members of that organization pronounced this week.

This Saturday also, Dominic Pezzola, who broke with a stolen police shield the first window through which the protesters entered the Capitol, received 10 years in prison, 10 less than those requested against him by the Prosecutor's Office.

On Thursday they had their verdict Joseph Biggs, lieutenant of Tarrio, and Zachary Rehl, the former leader in Philadelphia, for whom 17 and 15 years in prison were dictated, respectively, while next Tuesday it will be the turn of Tarrio.

Rehl, Biggs, Nordean and Tarrio were found guilty in May of conspiracy to commit sedition. Pezzola escaped that charge, but was found guilty of assault, resisting an agent of authority, and theft of government property.

According to the Justice Department, the attack began at 10 a.m., when Biggs, Rehl and others convinced about 00 people to go from the Ellipse, the park south of the White House, to the Capitol, bypassing multiple security barriers.

Throughout the process, prosecutors showed messages and videos posted by the defendants themselves and other members of the group, calling for violence and revolution against change in the presidency.

Thus, on January 6, 2021, about 10,000 people – mostly Trump supporters – marched to the Capitol and about 800 stormed the building. There were five dead and about 140 officers injured.

Since then, more than 1,000 people have been arrested in virtually all 50 states for crimes related to the attack and more than 350 have been charged with assault or obstruction of law enforcement, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Although not directly for the attack, Trump himself is indicted, both in Washington and in the state of Georgia for his attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The former president has pleaded not guilty in those two cases and in the other two criminal cases opened against him, in Florida for taking classified papers from the White House and in New York for irregular payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels to silence during the 2016 campaign an affair they had in the past.

See also:

How does the world view the far-right assault on the Capitol in Washington a year later?

(Taken from Public)