WASHINGTON — A federal judge has dismissed the remaining portions of the landmark seditious conspiracy case against several leaders of the Proud Boys, formally ending one of the Justice Department's most significant prosecutions arising from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol after the Trump administration moved to abandon the case.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly granted the Justice Department's request to dismiss the case involving Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola after an appeals court vacated their convictions and returned the matter to the trial court. The dismissals followed President Donald Trump's broad clemency actions covering defendants charged in connection with the Capitol attack. Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys chairman, had previously received a full presidential pardon.
Kelly, who presided over the original Proud Boys trial, wrote that the court had no legal basis to preserve the convictions once the executive branch chose to terminate the prosecutions. At the same time, he stressed that his ruling should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the government's decision to seek dismissal.
In his opinion, Kelly described the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol as "a perilous event" and an attack on the constitutional process for the peaceful transfer of presidential power, while noting that separation-of-powers principles limited the judiciary's ability to reject the government's request.
The Proud Boys leaders were convicted in 2023 after prosecutors argued they had coordinated efforts to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's 2020 election victory. Nordean, Biggs and Rehl were found guilty of seditious conspiracy, while Pezzola was convicted on other serious charges, including assaulting a police officer and obstructing Congress, though he was acquitted of seditious conspiracy.
The Justice Department under the Trump administration has sought to unwind many criminal cases stemming from the Capitol attack, arguing that continuing the prosecutions no longer served the interests of justice. Those actions followed Trump's sweeping pardons and sentence commutations for Jan. 6 defendants after returning to office.
The dismissal concludes the federal prosecution against the Proud Boys leaders, while a separate court proceeding involving members of the Oath Keepers remains pending.
