By Michael Kunzelman - The Associated Press
A former organizer of the far-right group Proud Boys was sentenced Thursday to 17 years in prison for leading the assault on the U.S. Congress to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election.
The sentence for Joseph Biggs is the second longest handed down for the assault so far, following the 18-year prison sentence for Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes.
Federal prosecutors recommended a 33-year sentence for Biggs. He and other Proud Boys joined the mob that on Jan. 6, 2021, broke through police ranks and forced lawmakers to flee during the joint session of Congress to certify Democrat Biden's election victory.
Members of the Proud Boys. Joseph Biggs (center). Carolyn Kaster / AP
Biggs acknowledged to the judge that he "screwed up that day," but attributed it to being "seduced by the crowd" of Trump supporters outside the Capitol and said he is not a violent person or "a terrorist."
The judge who convicted Biggs will also separately sentence four other Proud Boys convicted by jury in May.
Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys' top leader, is scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday.
Tarrio was not in Washington on January 6. He had been arrested two days before the riot at the Capitol accused of damaging a Black Lives Matter banner during an earlier rally in the nation's capital, and complied with a judge's order to leave the city after his arrest. He chose Biggs and Proud Boys chapter president Ethan Nordean to be the group's leaders on the ground in his absence, prosecutors said.
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Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, served in the military for eight years before being discharged for medical reasons in 2013. Later, he worked as a correspondent for Infowars, the website operated by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Lawyers for the defendants argue that the Justice Department is unfairly holding its clients accountable for the violent actions of others among the crowd of Trump supporters on Capitol Hill.
More than 1,100 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riots. More than 600 of them have been convicted and sentenced.