Leaders of Proud Boys ordered jailed on Capitol riot charges

A federal judge on Monday ordered two leaders of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group to be arrested and jailed while awaiting trial on charges they planned and coordinated an attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Joseph Biggs and Ethan Nordean had been free since their March 10 indictment, but U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly concluded that the two men are dangerous and no conditions for their release could be adequate. The judge said Biggs and Nordean “facilitated political violence” even if they weren’t armed and didn’t assault anybody at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

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Kelly overruled another federal judge in Washington, D.C., who had ordered pretrial home confinement for Nordean. Biggs was freed after his initial Jan. 20 arrest in his home state of Florida. Justice Department prosecutors initially didn’t seek to keep Biggs jailed but last month asked for his pretrial release to be revoked, saying new evidence shows he poses a “grave danger” to the community.

Attorneys for Biggs and Nordean asked Kelly to suspend Monday’s ruling pending a possible appeal, but the judge denied their request.

Biggs and Nordean are among more than two dozen Capitol riot defendants who have been described by federal authorities as Proud Boys leaders, members or associates.

Last month’s indictment charged Biggs, Nordean and two other men described as Proud Boys leaders with conspiring to impede Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote. Other charges in the indictment include obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder and disorderly conduct.

Zachary Rehl and Charles Donohoe are charged in the same indictment as Biggs and Nordean and have been jailed since their arrests in March.

Police arrested the Proud Boys’ top leader, Enrique Tarrio, in Washington two days before the riot and charged him with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during a protest in December. Tarrio, who was ordered to stay out of the District of Columbia, hasn’t been charged in connection with the Capitol siege.

Nordean, 30, of Auburn, Washington, has been a Proud Boys chapter president and member of the group’s national “Elders Council.” Biggs, 37, of Ormond Beach, Florida, is a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl, 35, of Philadelphia, and Donohoe, 33, of Kernersville, North Carolina, serve as presidents of their local Proud Boys chapters, according to the indictment.

Proud Boys members describe themselves as a politically incorrect men’s club for “Western chauvinists.” Its members frequently have engaged in street fights with antifascist activists at rallies and protests.

On the morning of the riot, Biggs and Nordean met other Proud Boys members at the Washington Monument and led them on a march to the Capitol before then-President Donald Trump finished addressing thousands of supporters near the White House, the indictment says.

Around two hours later, just before Congress convened a joint session to certify the election results, Proud Boys members followed a crowd of people who breached barriers at a pedestrian entrance to the Capitol grounds, the indictment says. Several Proud Boys also entered the Capitol building itself after the mob smashed windows and forced open doors.

During a March 3 hearing, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell accused prosecutors of backtracking on their claims that Nordean had instructed Proud Boys members to split up into smaller groups and directed a “strategic plan” to breach the Capitol. However, Howell concluded that Nordean was extensively involved in “pre-planning” for the events of Jan. 6 and that he and other Proud Boys “were clearly prepared for a violent confrontation” that day.

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from a Kentucky man whose pickup truck was seized at the Mexican border and held by the federal government for more than two years.

The justices did not comment in leaving in place a lower-court ruling against the man, Gerardo Serrano. He was asking the court to force the government to hold a prompt hearing when it takes people’s property under forfeiture laws.

Those laws allow the government to seize property without ever having to prove it was used for illicit purposes.

Serrano was crossing the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, on his way to visit relatives in 2015 when federal border agents searched and then took possession of his Ford F-250 pickup.

The agents justified the seizure because they found “munitions of war” in the vehicle, five bullets — but no gun. Serrano said he angered the agents by taking picture of the border crossing on his cellphone and then refusing to hand over the device’s password, although he said he deleted the photos.

A former New York City police officer pleaded guilty Friday to an obstruction of justice charge in a murder-for-hire plot that authorities say sought the death of her husband and her boyfriend’s teenage daughter.

Valerie Cincinelli, 36, entered the plea in Central Islip federal court on Long Island.

Cincinelli, of Oceanside in Nassau County, said she was “truly sorry” for impeding a grand jury probe on May 17, 2019, by deleting information on an iPhone with the intention of obstructing a murder-for-hire probe.

She is likely to face a sentence of up to five years in prison at a proceeding scheduled for Oct. 29. Though the charge carries a potential for up to 20 years behind bars, prosecutors as part of a plea deal have said they will not request more than five years.

Having already spent over a year and a half locked up, a sobbing Cincinelli immediately sought bail, saying: “For two years, I haven’t seen my son.”

U.S. District Judge Joanna Seybert reserved decision, though she sounded sympathetic to arguments that bail under strict conditions including electronic monitoring might be appropriate prior to sentencing, since Cincinelli might face less than two more years in prison.

Seybert took over the case after Judge Sandra Feuerstein was hit by a car and killed last week in Boca Raton, Florida.

As part of Cincinelli’s plea deal, prosecutors plan to drop two charges accusing Cincinelli of paying her lover to kill her husband. The lover went to authorities, and she was arrested.

A criminal complaint had alleged that Cincinelli asked a confidential FBI source to help her hire a hit man to kill the husband and a minor whose identities weren’t made public — for $7,000. Cincinelli allegedly destroyed two cellphones and the records they contained to block the investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Bagnuola said Friday that had the case reached trial, prosecutors would have played audio and video recordings in which Cincinelli and her then-boyfriend discussed a plot to have a hit man murder her estranged husband and her boyfriend’s teenage daughter.

Bagnuola said Cincinelli was heard on the recordings saying she planned to evade any law enforcement probe by offering an alibi and an alternative motive for the killing.

He said law enforcement authorities on May 17, 2019, advised Cincinelli falsely that her husband was found dead and that law enforcement was investigating the death.

The prosecutor said an FBI agent would have testified that he posed as the hit man and the jury would have seen a video recording of Cincinelli at the moment she saw the photo purported to be her dead husband.