Who is Enrique Tarrio? Ex-Proud Boys leader gets 22-year prison sentence, longest yet for Jan 6 riot

Former leader of a far-right group, Proud Boys, Henry 'Enrique' Tarrio was sentenced Tuesday to 22 years in prison for 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack. He is charged with seditious conspiracy and leading a failed plot to prevent the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

The sentence from District Judge Timothy Kelly is the longest given to anyone in relation to the US Capitol riots.

A jury in Washington DC found Tarrio and three members of the group guilty of seditious conspiracy. The decision came after the jury heard from several witnesses for more than three months in one of the most disturbing attacks in the history of the US.

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“MrTarrio was the ultimate leader, the ultimate person who organized, who was motivated by revolutionary zeal,” Kelly said at the end of the three-hour hearing, adding that he has shown “no remorse.”

Three other members of Proud Boys leadership were also found guilty of seditious conspiracy and sentenced last week.

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio: From running a T-shirt business to spearheading the US Capitol attack

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio calls himself as an activist who also worked for the FBI as an informant. He was the former chairman of the far-right, neo-fascist group, Proud Boys. It is an organisation that is exclusively male-dominated and promotes and engages in political violence in the United States.

Tarrio was born in Miami, Florida and was raised in Little Havana as a Catholic. He is of Cuban heritage and identifies himself as an Afro-Cuban. He served as the Florida state director of the grassroots organisation ‘Latinos for Trump.’

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In 2020, Tarrio was a candidate in the Republican primary election for Florida’s 27th congressional district but later withdrew.

Tarrio worked as an informant to both federal and local law enforcement, as per a former federal prosecutor and the transcripts of a 2014 federal court proceeding.

In 2004, Tarrio was in a small town in North Florida where he used to run a poultry farm. He then returned to Miami to run a security equipment installation firm and another business on GPS tracking for companies.

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He also owns a Miami T-shirt business, known as the 1776 Shop, which is an online vendor for right-wing merchandise.

The business sells a range of Proud Boys gear including shirts saying “Pinochet did nothing wrong.” Augusto Jose Pinochet was a Chilean dictator who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990.

Tarrio was indicted on a conspiracy charge by the Justice Department for his involvement in organising the January 6 attack on US Capitol. On June 6, 2022, the Justice Department announced that Tarrio and four other members had been indicted on more serious seditious conspiracy charges.

(With inputs from agencies)

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