MIAMI LAKES, Fla. – Zuny Duarte, the mother of former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio spoke at a press conference Thursday in Miami Lakes after her son was sentenced Tuesday to 22 years in prison for orchestrating a failed plot to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 election.
Speaking alongside her son’s defense attorney, Nayib Hassan, Duarte said the government has used her son as a “political pawn” and decried how her family had already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to defend him against charges that he had sought to violently overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Duarte emphasized that her son was not in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6 and claimed that he had left town a few days before.
She also said even though he was the leader of a neo-fascist white supremacist group, she still called him a good person.
“We have rapists, murderers, human trafficking that get very few years of sentencing comparison to the 22 years my son has been sentenced for,” she said. “He has always been a good person, involved in politics in the best, always with law enforcement.”
Tarrio, 39, pleaded for leniency before the judge imposed the prison term topping the 18-year sentences given to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and one-time Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean for seditious conspiracy and other convictions stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.
But a judge decide that Tarrio played a major intellectual rold in organizing the riots, handing down the harshest sentence yet to anyone involved in the events on Jan. 6.
We believed in our system and that’s why we kept quiet, because we believed justice would prevail and it has not, justice has failed us,” Duarte said Thursday.
Tarrio, who led the neofacist group as it became a force in mainstream Republican circles, lowered his head after the sentence was imposed, then squared his shoulders. He raised his hand and made a “V” gesture with his fingers as he was led out of the courtroom in orange jail garb.
His sentencing comes as the Justice Department prepares to put Trump on trial at the same courthouse in Washington on charges that the then-president illegally schemed to cling to power that he knew had been stripped away by voters.
Rising to speak before the sentence was handed down, Tarrio called Jan. 6 a “national embarrassment,” and apologized to the police officers who defended the Capitol and the lawmakers who fled in fear. His voice cracked as he said he let down his family and vowed that he is done with politics.
“I am not a political zealot. Inflicting harm or changing the results of the election was not my goal,” Tarrio said. “Please show me mercy,” he said, adding, “I ask you that you not take my 40s from me.”
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, said Tarrio was motivated by "revolutionary zeal" to lead the conspiracy that resulted in “200 men, amped up for battle, encircling the Capitol.” Noting that Tarrio had not previously shown any remorse publicly for his crimes, the judge said a stiff punishment was necessary to deter future political violence.
"It can't happen again. It can’t happen again,” the judge repeated.
The judge pointed to Tarrio's messages cheering on the Capitol attack and the Proud Boys' role in it.
“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote in one message. “We did this.” In another post as the Proud Boys swarmed the Capitol, Tarrio commanded: “Do what must be done.” In a Proud Boys encrypted group chat later that day someone asked what they should do next. Tarrio responded, “Do it again.”
Tarrio is the final Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy to receive his punishment. Three fellow Proud Boys found guilty by a Washington jury of the rarely used sedition charge were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 15 to 18 years.
Duarte concluded Thursday’s press conference by saying that Tarrio is no longer a member of the organization.