Judge dismisses the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy case with prejudice

A federal judge dismissed the government's seditious conspiracy case against four Proud Boys leaders late Friday, ending the last live piece of the Justice Department's largest January 6 prosecution.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who presided over the six month trial in 2023, granted the department's motion to dismiss the case with prejudice. That means the charges are permanently gone and cannot be refiled by a future administration. The order applies to Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola.

Kelly wrote that he was granting the motion because he had no power to do otherwise.

"In light of fundamental separation of powers principles ... the proper course here is for the Court simply to grant the motion in full."

He added that "no one should mistake the Court's granting of the Government's motion for its agreement," and that "the court lacks the authority to compel the Executive to pursue a prosecution, full stop."

What the four men were convicted of

A jury in Washington convicted Nordean, Biggs and Rehl of seditious conspiracy in May 2023, a Civil War era charge that covers plotting to oppose the government by force. Pezzola was acquitted of that count and convicted of other felonies, including assaulting officers and breaking a Capitol window with a stolen police riot shield, which opened one of the first entry points into the building.

Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys national chairman, was convicted at the same trial. Kelly sentenced him to 22 years, the longest sentence handed down in any Capitol riot case.

How the case got here

President Trump's clemency proclamation on Jan. 20, 2025, pardoned most January 6 defendants and commuted the sentences of a smaller group, including these four. Tarrio received a full pardon. The proclamation also directed the attorney general to pursue dismissal with prejudice of pending cases tied to the attack.

The four commuted defendants still carried convictions on the books, which left the case alive. According to Newsweek's account of the docket, the Justice Department asked the appeals court in April to vacate the convictions, the appeals court agreed in May and returned the case to Kelly, and the department moved to dismiss in July. The defendants did not oppose the motion.

Kelly said there was "little mystery" about why the department wanted the case gone.

"President Trump's views about the prosecution of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, whether those views are based on fact or fiction, are well known, as is his intention to extend clemency to them."

He described the riot as "a perilous event" and an attack on the constitutional mechanism for the peaceful transfer of power, and wrote that if "this Nation's experiment in self-government is to last another 250 years, the American people, no matter their partisan preferences, will have to act together to preserve, protect and defend that miracle through our constitutional framework."

What is left

A separate judge has not yet ruled on the Justice Department's parallel request to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of Oath Keepers leaders, who were convicted in a different trial on the same theory. That motion is still pending.

The dismissal does not disturb the jury's findings from the 2023 trial. It removes the convictions that followed them.