Five members of the Proud Boys who were convicted in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot are suing the Department of Justice, claiming they were targets of “political persecution” as allies of President Trump.
The five Proud Boys filed the $100 million lawsuit in federal district court in Orlando, Fla., on Friday, nearly six months after Trump granted pardons to more than 1,500 defendants who were convicted of various charges related to the riot.
The 28-page complaint says the five plaintiffs — Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — were victims of a “corrupt and politically motivated” prosecution.
Tarrio, Biggs, Nordean and Rehl were convicted of seditious conspiracy charges. While Pezzola was acquitted of that charge, he was convicted of other felonies.
“What follows is a parade of horribles: egregious and systemic abuse of the legal system and the United States Constitution to punish and oppress political allies of President Trump, by any and all means necessary, legal, or illegal,” the complaint reads.
The lawsuit lists a number of complaints, including disapproval about the ways the men were arrested and denied bail and that the FBI used paid informants to spy on their defense team. The plaintiffs argue the government deprived them of their constitutional rights.
The seditious conspiracy convictions, which were among ten of their kind involving members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, were perhaps the biggest January 6-related cases the Biden DOJ tried.
Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader who was accused of orchestrating the riot, was sentenced to 22 years in prison, the longest sentence of any January 6 defendant.
But Trump pardoned Tarrio and commuted the sentences of 14 other Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
The lawsuit points to Trump’s pardon proclamation, in which the president said his decree would bring about an end to “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years.”
Tarrio on Friday urged Trump to pardon the remaining Proud Boys and Oath Keepers; Biggs, Nordean, Pezzola and Rehl applied for pardons in May, according to the lawsuit.
“You’ve seen what the president has said about January 6ers, and I believe that he did the right thing when he pardoned us on day one,” Tarrio told reporters. “And, I think there’s a lot of work to be done.”