The far-right Proud Boys’ leader demanded immediate release to house confinement, alleging bad circumstances in the D.C. jail.
In late 2020, Henry Tarrio, also known as Enrique, was sentenced to five months in prison for stealing and burning a Black Lives Matter flag from a historic Black church in D.C. and burning it.
Tarrio joins a growing number of high-profile defendants, including seven U.S. Capitol riot defendants, who are requesting release from the D.C. jail due to poor conditions observed by U.S. Marshals on the facility.
Tarrio’s request will be heard in court on Monday at 2 p.m.
After admitting to burning the Black Lives Matter sign during a pro-Trump rally in December, Tarrio was jailed in August.
He was detained in Washington on Jan. 4 on a warrant related to the incident on Dec. 12. The Proud Boys and other organizations marched across downtown in a loud rally. Asbury United Methodist Church, one of D.C.’s oldest Black churches, had its banner stolen.
Tarrio, of Miami, also admitted to attempting to possess a high-capacity pistol magazine, which is prohibited in the District of Columbia. He had the magazines with him when he came to the city on Jan. 6 to protest the electoral vote count in Congress, according to investigators.
Prosecutors suggested a 90-day prison sentence, followed by three months of probation and an order prohibiting him from returning to Washington. He was sentenced to 155 days in prison by the judge.
Before turning himself in Tarrio issued a resolute statement.
“I am not worried and feel at peace with what I must do over the next five months,” he wrote.
He then added, “keep protesting, keep holding power to account, and never back down. They want to kill you, our patriotism, and cause the total erasure of our culture.”
He announced the establishment of a “Tarrio Family Support Fund,” as well as the publication of his memoir, American Warlord, in early 2022.
While being sentenced back in late August, Tarrio apologized during his sentencing hearing for vandalizing a Black Lives Matter flag at a church in Washington, D.C.
Tarrio admitted during the hearing that he tore down and burned a BLM flag on display at Washington’s Asbury United Methodist Church.
He also stated that he now realizes his acts were wrong and that he was particularly upset to hear Rev. Dr. IIanther Mills testify about the racial scars that Tarrio and his associates created by vandalizing their church.
“I made a grave mistake,” he said, according to MacFarlane. “I’d like to profusely apologize for my actions… I heard the grief in [Mills’s] voice. What I did was wrong.”
Tarrio also apologized for taking ammo magazines with him to the pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C.
Tarrio added that he no longer carries a pocket knife on him before saying that “there’s no excuse for what I did.”
Tarrio’s defense attorneys have requested the court to just sentence him to community service in his hometown of Miami, however, he was sentenced to more than 5 months in jail.
Judge Harold L. Cushenberry Jr. of DC Superior Court issued the judgment on Monday. Despite the fact that Tarrio was not in Washington on the day of the insurgency on January 6, the judge stated Tarrio’s previous behavior in the nation’s capital harmed American democracy.
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