First Proud Boys leader pleads guilty to Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy

Jeremy Bertino was part of the right-wing group’s inner circle and accused of planning violence to stop the Joe Biden presidency

First Proud Boys leader pleads guilty to Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy RRBPKF6XJVYFMORCJHDIRFKNR4

A lieutenant of longtime former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio became the group’s first member to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot on Thursday, deepening the government’s case against an organization accused of mobilizing violence to prevent the inauguration of Joe Biden.

Jeremy Bertino, 43, of Belmont, N.C., agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department against Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders with ties to influential Donald Trump supporters Roger Stone and Alex Jones. The Proud Boys defendants are set to face trial in December on charges including plotting to oppose by force the presidential transition, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

At a hearing before U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly in Washington, Bertino pleaded guilty to that count and to one count of illegal possession of firearms as a former felon, punishable by 51 to 63 months in prison at sentencing under advisory federal guidelines, prosecutors said.

In a sign of the sensitivity and potential importance of Bertino’s testimony, prosecutors agreed that in exchange for “substantial cooperation,” they could seek leniency at sentencing and enter Bertino into a Justice Department witness protection program.

In plea papers, Bertino said Proud Boys leaders “agreed that the election had been stolen, that the purpose of traveling to Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, was to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote, and that the [Ministry of Self Defense] leaders were willing to do whatever it would take, including using force against police and others, to achieve that objective.”

He admitted that at least two days earlier he received encrypted chat messages indicating that members of the Proud Boys leadership group who called themselves the Ministry of Self Defense “believed that storming the Capitol would achieve the group’s goal” and would require using violence.

.https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/06/proud-boys-bertino-plea-seditious-conspiracy/

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First Proud Boys leader pleads guilty to Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy

Jeremy Bertino was part of the right-wing group’s inner circle and accused of planning violence to stop the Joe Biden presidency

First Proud Boys leader pleads guilty to Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy

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