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Proud Boys Leader Turns Himself in After Last-Ditch Ploy to Reduce Sentence

Enrique Tarrio claimed the judge who sentenced him had a conflict of interest.

Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right Proud Boys gang, reported for his five-month jail sentence Monday—but not before putting up a fight. Tarrio tried to reduce his sentence via an emergency appeal Saturday. He argued that Judge Harold Cushenberry’s past posed a conflict of interest, as the judge’s daughter had been baptized at the church where Tarrio burned a Black Lives Matter flag. But the judge had disclosed the prior affiliation early in the trial, and Tarrio said it was not a problem. The right-winger made his appearance at the Washington, D.C. Jail around 10 p.m. Monday, urging in a final, unapologetic statement that his prosecution was the result of an “over-politicized Biden Justice Department that caters to who they will set their sights on.” That’s despite Tarrio’s words at his Aug. 23 sentencing hearing: “What I did was wrong.”