Former Proud Boys organizer sentenced to 17 years for Capitol attack
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Before his sentencing, Joseph Biggs expressed that he was aware he "messed up that day," but pleaded that he was "not a terrorist."
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Joseph Biggs walks toward the Capitol in Washington, DC, in support of President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP)
A former organizer of the far-right Proud Boys extremist organization was sentenced to 17 years in jail on Thursday for planning an attack on the US Capitol to impede the peaceful transition of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden following the 2020 presidential election.
In early August, Trump pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election and defraud the American people.
Read next: Final report on Jan.6 riots: Trump charged on 'multi-part conspiracy'
Federal prosecutors have proposed a 33-year prison term for Joseph Biggs, who led hundreds of Proud Boys members and allies in a march to the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Biggs and other Proud Boys joined the throng that burst past police lines and forced legislators to escape, disrupting Congress' joint session to recognize Biden's election triumph.
Before his sentencing, Biggs expressed that he was aware he "messed up that day," but pleaded that he was "not a terrorist."
Read more: New Zealand lists Proud Boys, other US far-right group as terrorist
The same judge who jailed Biggs will sentence four other Proud Boys who were convicted by a jury in May following a four-month trial in Washington that exposed far-right extremists' endorsement of Trump's falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Enrique Tarrio, national chairman and senior commander of the Proud Boys, is due to be sentenced next Tuesday. As the judge Timothy Kelly was ill, his sentence was deferred from Wednesday to next week.
Tarrio was indicted and arrested in March on the account of conspiracy, in addition to other charges such as the obstruction of a proceeding in Congress.
Biggs spent eight years in the US Army until being medically discharged in 2013. He then went on to serve as a correspondent for Infowars, a website run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
In a legal document released in July, Owen Shroyer, host of InfoWars, pleaded guilty to illegally entering a prohibited place on January 6, 2021. He entered a guilty plea, acknowledging that he and the founder Alex Jones violated several restricted areas of the Capitol grounds.
Biggs, Tarrio, Nordean, and Proud Boys chapter head Zachary Rehl were found guilty of seditious conspiracy.
Prosecutors also recommended prison sentences of 33 years for Tarrio, 30 years for Rehl, 27 years for Nordean, and 20 years for Pezzola.
Defense attorneys argued that the justice department was unfairly holding their clients responsible for the violent actions of others in the crowd of Trump supporters at the Capitol.
More than 1,100 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 600 of them have been convicted and sentenced.
Three days before the Capitol riots, one Proud Boy member posted a message on the MOSD Leaders Group, where he said that the "main operating theater should be out in front of the House of Representatives," according to the indictment.
