A member of the far-right extremist group Proud Boys was sentenced to six years of imprisonment after insulting a judge during a hearing over his involvement in the Capitol Hill riot.
The man, identified as 44-year-old Marc Bru, was among the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In October last year, he was found guilty of two felonies, including obstruction of an official proceeding and civil disorder as well as five misdemeanor charges.
The judge handling the case said that the defendant showed no signs of remorse for his actions and Bru said, "You could give me 100 years and I would still do it all over again." Prior to the sentencing, prosecutors have been seeking to have the defendant sentenced to more than seven years behind bars.
They also argued that the Proud Boys member was amongst the "least remorseful January 6 defendants." On the day of the Capitol Hill siege, Bru was among the first people to breach the restricted perimeter on the west side of the Capitol grounds, as per CBS News.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) added that Bru spent several hours harassing U.S. Capitol police officers trying to control the crowd. During the riot, officers tried to use bicycle rack barricades to push the rioters back.
On the other hand, Bru charged, grabbed a barricade, and used his body weight to stop law enforcement personnel from moving it forward against his fellow rioters. He later went into the Capitol building and took several selfies while inside.
Roughly six weeks after the unprecedented siege, Bru tried to organize what officials described as a violent insurrection in Portland, Oregon. In a court filing ahead of the sentencing, prosecutors said that Bru wanted a repeat of Jan. 6, 2021, but also implied that it would be more violent the second time.
Least Remorseful Jan. 6 Defendant
Authorities said the defendant also skipped a scheduled June 26 pre-trial conference for his federal charges. On top of the six-year prison verdict, Bru was also sentenced to 36 months of supervised release and was handed a fine of $7,946 and $2,000 in restitution.
During his sentencing, Bru repeatedly interrupted Chief Judge James Boasberg, calling him a "clown" and a "fraud" presiding over what he called a "kangaroo court." The judge then warned the defendant that he could be kicked out of the courtroom if he continued to disrupt the proceedings.
The defendant has been representing himself with an attorney on standby and he continued to spout anti-government rhetoric that appears to have been inspired by the sovereign citizen movement. At the beginning of his hearing, Bru demanded that the judge and a prosecutor turn over five years of their financial records.
After that, the judge gave him a 10-minute break with his standby lawyer before he resumed the hearing, which suffered more interruptions. Bru talked to the judge, saying that he did not accept any of the terms and conditions.
Prosecutors then said that Bru intended to continue to disrupt the court's sentencing. He was called into a nightly vigil on Tuesday outside the jail where he and other rioters are being held. He told supporters of the detained Jan. 6 defendants that he would "try to put on a good show" during his sentencing, said Yahoo News.
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