Tag: proud boys

N.C. Proud Boys had a liability — a member who was a sex offender, white supremacist and fed

Michael Alan Jones, a white supremacist, convicted sex offender and FBI informant, was a vetted member of the Charlotte, N.C., Proud Boys chapter, Raw Story has learned.

The revelation means that the Proud Boys — an extremist group that has loudly positioned itself as a guardian of public morality by protesting drag shows and other LGBTQ events — failed to properly vet a former member who had been convicted of a sex offense for having sex with a minor.

As Raw Story has previously reported, Jones recruited for the white supremacist terror network the Base, attended rallies with the more public facing white supremacist group Patriot Front, and fought with the police alongside the Proud Boys at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Following a traffic stop in upstate New York, Jones pleaded guilty in December to being a felon in possession of a gun. He is currently awaiting sentencing.

While Jones’ involvement by the Proud Boys has been previously reported, his one-time membership in the Charlotte chapter was confirmed last month during an acrimonious public spat on the social media app Telegram as a mutinous faction pushed aside the chapter’s one-time president.

Joshua Ballinger, the one-time president of the Charlotte Proud Boys chapter, referenced Jones by his nickname “Strategian” during a marathon exchange of video chats, audio chats and texts that ran up to 250 comments on June 13.

“Oh, are you talking about Strategian — the dude that was in f—ing Charlotte while you were in Charlotte and went through the same vetting that you went through, I guess?” Ballinger said. “Are you talking about that guy? That guy that was 19 and was sleeping with a 17-year-old? Even though, yeah, it is illegal and he shouldn’t have been doing it and that’s f—ing, to me, gross, but come on, man, you’re pulling a stretch.”

As previously reported by Raw Story, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police responded to a call for service at a house in Charlotte where Jones was staying in an attempt to locate a 17-year-old girl who was listed as a missing person. During the visit to the house, the police determined that the girl, described in the incident report as “mentally handicapped,” had been assaulted, while classifying the offense as “forcible rape.” The case was cleared because the victim chose not to prosecute.

While downplaying the alleged rape, Ballinger also misstated Jones’ age. He was 24 at the time of the incident.

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The FBI had more people in the Proud Boys than the Proud Boys

The new House oversight committee investigating the political weaponization of the Justice Department may want to bring on some additional staff and start putting in some overtime. Every new story that comes out about the FBI’s actions in recent years makes the Bureau look worse and worse. The latest story posted by our colleagues at PJ Media involves the ongoing “seditious conspiracy” charges being brought against leaders and members of the Proud Boys. The trial of chapter leader Zach Rehl was preparing to call a witness this week, but ran into a problem. Their “witness” turned out to be a confidential informant for the FBI who had been spying on the defense team. That brought the trial to a screeching halt “until these issues have been considered and resolved.” That’s putting it mildly, to say the least.

Critics of the harsh prosecutions in the January 6th debacle continue to be vindicated. Those who have said the whole thing was a setup keep getting proved right by our own Department of Justice. According to lawyers for Zachary Rehl, a Proud Boys chapter leader charged with seditious conspiracy, the government failed to disclose that one of the witnesses scheduled to testify was actually a confidential informant for the FBI. Surprisingly, the Associated Press reported it.

“Carmen Hernandez, a lawyer for former Proud Boys chapter leader Zachary Rehl, asked a judge to schedule an immediate emergency hearing and suspend the trial “until these issues have been considered and resolved.” Lawyers for the other four defendants joined in Hernandez’s request.”

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‘Disturbing’: FBI’s Alleged Altering of Evidence in Jan. 6 Proud Boys Case, Trial Paused: Defense Lawyer

The trial of Dominic Pezzola, one of the defendants of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, was paused on Thursday due to classified FBI messages revealed in court, which the defense attorneys say show FBI agents discussing the altering of evidence.

Pezzola is one of the Proud Boys members on trial for obstruction and conspiracy charges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. He was arrested on Jan. 15, 2021, and indicted the same month. Pezzola’s trial began in January of this year.

“There are a couple of emails between FBI agents casually discussing altering a document and destroying hundreds of pieces of evidence. It’s very disturbing and right now we have more questions than answers,” Roger Roots, an attorney at John Pierce Law, wrote. Roots confirmed that Washington District Court Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, paused the trial on Thursday due to the leaked messages.

The exchange Roots referred to came into light on Wednesday during the testimony of FBI special agent Nicole Miller, who was involved in the agency’s investigations of the Jan. 6 defendants.

When cross-examining Miller, Nick Smith, an attorney representing Proud Boys member Ethan Nordean (listed as co-defendant on Pezzola’s case), revealed classified FBI emails that were hidden in a tab in an Excel spreadsheet. Roots, in Pezzola’s case, used this evidence to support a motion to dismiss (pdf) the charges against Pezzola, which Roots’s team filed on Wednesday.

In the motion, Pezzola’s team said the emails showed that the FBI was monitoring communications between Nordean and his lawyer, violating the Sixth Amendment, which prohibits invasions of the right to counsel (Matter of Fusco v. Moses).

“In the Nordean case, confidential attorneys-client trial/defense strategy and position was wrongfully obtained by the government, about which was overheard, shared, utilized, where potentially ‘338 items of evidence’ were ordered to be ‘destroyed,’ said Pezzola’s legal team in the motion to dismiss.

According to a separate filing by Nordean’s lawyers, Miller said in one correspondence that “[her] boss assigned [her] 338 items of evidence [she has] to destroy”; Nordean’s lawyers allege that another email show an agent requesting Miller to “go into [a] CHS [informant] report” that Miller “just put [together] and edit out that [the agent] was present.”

The emails show Miller “admitted fabricating evidence and following orders to destroy hundreds of items of evidence,” Pezzola’s lawyers wrote in its motion to dismiss, and that the government obtained information that benefitted itself in the trial, causing substantial prejudice to each of the defendants, including Pezzola.

“If justice means anything, it requires this case to be dismissed,” Pezzola’s lawyer said.

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FBI Informants Who Marched With Proud Boys on Jan. 6 Will Testify for Their Defense

Before the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, the FBI had well-placed informants in the Proud Boys who the government hoped could glean information about the notorious far-right street-fighting gang’s inner workings. 

Now, some of those same informants are being called as witnesses in the Proud Boys’ high-profile seditious conspiracy trial—by the defense, who think their testimony will help get their clients off the hook and prove they had no plot to storm the Capitol. 

According to defense lawyers, those informants were privy to Proud Boys’ chats and even marched alongside them to the Capitol on Jan. 6. 

After several delays, opening arguments finally got underway Thursday in the high-profile seditious conspiracy trial against the Proud Boy ‘s ex-“chairman” Enrique Tarrio, top organizers Joseph Biggs, Zach Rehl, and Ethan Nordean, and member Dominic Pezzola. 

All five men are accused of entering into a secret agreement to storm the Capitol, with the ultimate goal of disrupting and even preventing the peaceful transition of power. They face a maximum of 20 years in prison. 

Each of the defendants has their own legal teams—an array of personalities and characters who are employing a grab bag of strategies and arguments they hope will exonerate their clients. But it’s clear that the biggest asset to the defense’s case, by far, could be the testimony of those government informants. 

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A High-Ranking Proud Boy Is Now Snitching for the Feds

Federal prosecutors appear to have made their biggest breakthrough yet in their sprawling investigation into the violent riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A high-ranking Proud Boy has flipped, agreeing to testify in any and all cases where his testimony might be “deemed relevant by the government.” 

It’s the latest example of the government strengthening its case against the far-right street-fighting gang that’s become a national household name since its leaders and dozens of members have been charged in relation to the Capitol riot. 

Late last week, the Justice Department announced that Charles Donohoe, leader of the North Carolina Proud Boys chapter, had pleaded guilty to two charges—conspiring to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election results, and assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement officers.

Donohoe was charged with conspiracy along with five prominent Proud Boys, including the group’s former national chairman Enrique Tarrio. 

But Donohoe’s agreement with the government could have cascading effects beyond his case.

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Proud Boys leader was ‘prolific’ informer for law enforcement

Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys extremist group, has a past as an informer for federal and local law enforcement, repeatedly working undercover for investigators after he was arrested in 2012, according to a former prosecutor and a transcript of a 2014 federal court proceeding obtained by Reuters.

In the Miami hearing, a federal prosecutor, a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and Tarrio’s own lawyer described his undercover work and said he had helped authorities prosecute more than a dozen people in various cases involving drugs, gambling and human smuggling.

Tarrio, in an interview with Reuters Tuesday, denied working undercover or cooperating in cases against others. “I don’t know any of this,” he said, when asked about the transcript. “I don’t recall any of this.”

Law-enforcement officials and the court transcript contradict Tarrio’s denial. In a statement to Reuters, the former federal prosecutor in Tarrio’s case, Vanessa Singh Johannes, confirmed that “he cooperated with local and federal law enforcement, to aid in the prosecution of those running other, separate criminal enterprises, ranging from running marijuana grow houses in Miami to operating pharmaceutical fraud schemes.”

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