25/01/24
Proud Boys member gets six years in prison for Capitol riot after insulting judge
A man who stormed the US Capitol with fellow Proud Boys far-right extremist group members was sentenced on Wednesday to six years in prison after he berated and insulted the judge who punished him.
Marc Bru repeatedly interrupted chief judge James Boasberg before the sentence was handed down, calling him a “clown” and a “fraud” presiding over a “kangaroo court”.
The judge warned Bru that he could be kicked out of the courtroom if he continued to disrupt the proceedings.
“You can give me 100 years and I’d do it all over again,” said Bru, who was handcuffed and shackled.
“That’s the definition of no remorse in my book,” the judge said.
Prosecutors described Bru as one of the least remorseful rioters who assaulted the Capitol on 6 January 2021 when extremist supporters of Donald Trump, encouraged by the then outgoing US president broke into the Capitol to try to stop the certification by a joint session of Congress of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Lawmakers were chased out of the Capitol amid threats to their lives, as law enforcement came under siege and were physically attacked. Biden’s win was certified in the early hours of 7 January 2021, after the Capitol was cleared, and he was sworn in as president, peacefully, later that month after Trump left the White House but refused to attend the inauguration of his successor.
Prosecutors said Bru planned for an armed insurrection – a so-called “January 6 2.0” attack – to take over the government in Portland, Oregon, several weeks after the deadly riot in Washington DC.
“He wanted a repeat of January 6, only he implied this time would be more violent,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing ahead of his sentencing.
Bru has been representing himself with an attorney on standby. He has spewed anti-government rhetoric that appears to be inspired by the sovereign citizen movement. At the start of the hearing, Bru demanded that the judge and a prosecutor turn over five years of their financial records.
The judge gave him a 10-minute break to confer with his standby lawyer before the hearing resumed with more interruptions.
“I don’t accept any of your terms and conditions,” Bru said. “You’re a clown and not a judge.”
Prosecutors had warned the court that Bru intended to disrupt his sentencing. On Tuesday, he called in to a nightly vigil outside the jail where he and other rioters are being held. He told supporters of the detained January 6 defendants that he would “try to put on a good show” at his sentencing.
Trump has taken to calling such defendants “hostages”, while out on the campaign trail as he aims to win the Republican nomination and take on Biden again in the 2024 presidential election.
Boasberg convicted Bru of seven charges, including two felonies, after hearing trial testimony without a jury in October.
Bru flew from Portland, Oregon, to Washington a day before Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House. Before Trump’s speech, he joined dozens of other Proud Boys in marching to the Capitol and was one of the first rioters to breach a restricted area. Bru grabbed a barricade and shoved it against police officers. He later joined other rioters inside the Capitol and entered the Senate gallery, where he flashed a hand gesture associated with the Proud Boys as he posed for selfie photos. He spent roughly 13 minutes inside the building.
More than 1,200 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related crimes.
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