Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio has been hit with a conspiracy charge for his alleged role in plotting the US Capitol riot, federal prosecutors said on Tuesday.
The 38-year-old was arrested in Miami, where he lives, for conspiracy and a string of other charges tied to the coordinated attack last year.
Prosecutors allege that Tarrio led the advance planning of the riot and also remained in contact with other members of the far-right Proud Boys group as they breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Tarrio isn’t accused of participating in the riot.
He had been ordered to stay out of Washington, DC, after being released from custody the day before for burning a Black Lives Matter flag during a pro-Trump demonstration.
“The indictment alleges that Tarrio nonetheless continued to direct and encourage the Proud Boys prior to and during the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and that he claimed credit for what had happened on social media and in an encrypted chat room during and after the attack,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
Tarrio was charged alongside five co-defendants who are affiliated with the Proud Boys and were all indicted early last year. The co-defendants, including Dominic Pezzola, 44, of Rochester, New York, have since pleaded not guilty.
More than three dozen people charged in the Capitol riot have been tied to the Proud Boys group.
The new charges for Tarrio come just two months after he was released from prison following a five-month sentence for burning the Black Lives Matter flag.
He was scheduled to make an initial appearance in the Southern District of Florida Court on the Capitol riot charges later on Tuesday.
Tarrio was indicted on one count each of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and obstruction of an official proceeding, as well as two counts each of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers and destruction of government property.
The charges for Tarrio are among the most serious filed so far in relation to the Capitol riot — but they aren’t the first of their kind.
Eleven members or associates of the Oath Keepers militia group were previously charged with seditious conspiracy over the riot.
In total, more than 775 people have been arrested in nearly all 50 states in connection to the Capitol riot.
