Proud Boys Leader Asks Judge to Reduce His Sentence or Put Him on House Arrest, Claims Poor Jail Conditions

The head of the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys urged a judge on Monday to release him before completing his five-month sentence for burning a Black Lives Matter flag taken from a historic Black church in Washington, D.C., due to poor jail circumstances.

Judge Jonathan Pittman of the D.C. Superior Court indicated Monday that he would rule by the end of the week on whether Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio’s sentence should be reduced to 90 days. However, the judge’s skeptical tone left Tarrio visibly slumped in frustration.

Tarrio requested that his sentence be reduced or that he be permitted to serve the remainder of it under house arrest, claiming that he had been harassed by correctional staff and had been subjected to terrible jail circumstances. He claimed that the foul toilet water from a nearby cell flooded his cell on a regular basis.

“I’ve been to jail before and what I’ve seen here, I’ve never seen anywhere else,” Tarrio said, wearing an orange jumpsuit and a mask over his face. “This place needs to be shut down immediately.”

At the time, Tarrio described the abusive guards, the frequently flooded cells, smoke-filled passageways, and medical neglect.

He said, “I’m deathly afraid that something is going to happen to me.”

According to attorneys for the government, they acknowledged some of the issues within the detention facilities and stated that they were being corrected. They claimed the flooding was caused by a prisoner in a nearby cell who often flooded his own toilet in protest, and that Tarrio had since been transferred to another cell. They denied that Tarrio had been handled unfairly, that he had been singled out, or that his rights had been violated in any manner.

Tarrio’s concerns about jail conditions in Washington are similar to those of numerous other inmates charged in the disturbance at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6. Local activists have long been critical of the conditions in the D.C. central jail. Because of the Jan. 6 defendants, the problem has taken on a national political dimension in recent months.

A federal judge found the District of Columbia’s corrections director and jail warden in contempt of court in October and ordered the Justice Department to look into whether detainees’ civil rights were being violated. Last Monday, the District and the US Marshals Service reached an agreement to enhance the jail’s conditions.

Pittman used the jail’s tarnished reputation as proof that Tarrio wasn’t singled out for abuse on Monday.

“It is obviously distressing to hear of these conditions,” he said. “I come back to the same question: How is Mr. Tarrio’s condition any different than any other inmate at the jail?”

During his time in a segregation unit, Tarrio claims he was subjected to  “serious abuses of his rights on a daily basis.”  He claims that jail employees have ignored his demands for medical treatment, served him cold, often inedible meals, and deprived him of access to running water in his cell.

Tarrio’s attorney, Lucas Dansie wrote “Mr. Tarrio has been intimidated and antagonized by correctional staff to dissuade him from making complaints about the horrendous conditions.”

In the Capitol riot, over three dozen Proud Boys leaders, members, and associates have been charged. Some of them are accused of plotting a coordinated attack on the Capitol to prevent President Joe Biden’s electoral victory from being certified by Congress.

Tarrio was not present in the Capitol on Jan. 6 and has not been charged in the riot. Two days before the siege, he was arrested in Washington on a warrant and ordered to leave the country’s capital.

According to police, Tarrio admitted to destroying property and attempting to possess a large-capacity ammunition feeding device. When investigators arrested Tarrio on Jan. 4, they found two unloaded pistol magazines imprinted with the Proud Boys emblem in his backpack.

Several defendants have filed lawsuits against the D.C. jail facility since January 6. One of these incidents prompted a surprise examination by the US Marshals Service last month, which discovered systemic abuse and unhygienic conditions.

Both the warden of the jail and the director of the correctional department were eventually held in contempt of court by a federal judge.

The Department of Justice announced intentions to move 400 federal inmates from a total population of around 1,500 to a new facility in Pennsylvania. Tarrio and the other Jan. 6 defendants are not expected to be included in that transfer.

Tarrio cited the federal prisoner transfer on Monday as evidence that the D.C. jail was simply unfit to operate.

“They don’t move 400 prisoners for nothing,” he informed the judge.