Miami (AFP) – Five members of the far right Proud Boys convicted of orchestrating the US Capitol riot filed a lawsuit on Friday seeking $100 million in damages for alleged violations of their constitutional rights. The suit, filed in a federal court in Florida, claims the five were victims of “corrupt and politically motivated persecution” intended to punish political allies of President Donald Trump.
Among the five plaintiffs is former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for directing the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden. Tarrio, whose sentence for seditious conspiracy was the longest doled out to Capitol rioters, was among the more than 1,500 Trump supporters pardoned by the Republican president on his first day in office.
In their suit, the Proud Boys members said they were victims of “egregious and systemic abuse of the legal system and the United States Constitution to punish and oppress political allies of President Trump.” They accused government prosecutors of “evidence tampering, witness intimidation, violations of attorney-client privilege, and placing spies to report on trial strategy.” It said their convictions were “the modern equivalent of placing one’s enemies’ heads on a spike outside the town wall as a warning to any who would think to challenge the status quo.”
The Proud Boys members demanded a jury trial and punitive damages of $100 million. The Trump administration agreed last month to pay nearly $5 million to the family of a woman shot dead by a police officer during the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Ashli Babbitt, 35, was shot as she tried to climb through a window leading to the House Speaker’s lobby during the assault on Congress by Trump supporters. Babbitt’s estate filed a wrongful death suit last year seeking $30 million. The case had been scheduled to go on trial, but the Justice Department reversed course after Trump won the November 2024 election and entered into settlement talks.
The Capitol assault, which left more than 140 police officers injured, followed a fiery speech by then-president Trump to tens of thousands of his supporters near the White House in which he repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 race. He then encouraged the crowd to march on Congress.
© 2024 AFP
