A former member of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group who smashed a window at the U.S. Capitol in the building’s first breach of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison – and then defiantly declared as he walked out of the courtroom, „Trump won!“
A former member of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group who smashed a window at the U.S. Capitol in the building’s first breach of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison – and then defiantly declared as he walked out of the courtroom, “Trump won!”
The sentence for Dominic Pezzola is the latest handed down after leaders of the group were convicted of spearheading an attack aimed at preventing the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.
Pezzola, 46, took a police officer’s riot shield and used it to smash the window, allow rioters to make the first breach into the Capitol, and he later filmed a “celebratory video” with a cigar inside the building, prosecutors said. He was a recent Proud Boys recruit, however, and a jury acquitted him of the most high-profile charge, seditious conspiracy, a rarely brought Civil War-era offense. He was convicted of other serious charges, and prosecutors had asked for 20 years in prison.
