The indictment adds two defendants to a criminal case already pending against Seattle Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean and Florida Proud Boys event organizer Joseph Biggs.
According to the conspiracy charge, Zachary Rehl (35) from Philadelphia and Charles Donohoe (33) from North Carolina worked with Biggs and Nordean as local chapters of Proud Boys to prepare paramilitary and high-tech communications equipment, raise funds and assert their rights to to encourage. wing group members to come to Washington.
Prosecutors say they also mutually modified channels for encrypted messages that led to the Capitol’s pro-Trump rally and storm, and that the four men each posted on social media and in encrypted conversations about their pride in doing so. to take part in the siege. .
“I am proud of what we achieved yesterday, but we need to start planning and we start planning for a Biden presidency,” Rehl said in a message after the siege, prosecutors said.
Further court proceedings for Nordean and Donohoe are scheduled for next week. Nordean and Biggs were released from jail pending trial.
More than a dozen Proud Boys – including several other leaders among the group – have now been charged in various conspiracy and riot-related cases after the uprising.
The Department of Justice has made it clear that the unraveling of the group and the disruption of possible politically motivated violence in the future is a priority in the almost unprecedented domestic terrorism investigation.
Prosecutors, in the new indictment released Friday, are documenting challenging posts about Biden’s election college of Rehl and others in the weeks before January 6th.
Prosecutors say the Proud Boys raised $ 5,500 in donations between Dec. 30 and Jan. 4.
The indictment also mentions a co-conspirator who did not discuss the week of the sixth teams of Proud Boys, and a communication channel of Proud Boys who mentions a “plan” on the day of the pro-Trump rally and violent march to the Capitol.
What prosecutors of the Proud Boys’ chairman know
Donohoe tried to move members of the group to another encrypted message two days before the riot, fearing the group’s statement would be exposed, prosecutors said in the indictment on Friday.
The detail by the Department of Justice to illustrate how the group worked to allegedly exert sophisticated pressure in the Capitol during the chaos.
Earlier, prosecutors said in court that they believed the Proud Boys wanted Nordean to accept ‘war forces’ in Tarrio’s absence.
Tarrio was arrested two days before the siege when he arrived in DC for allegedly burning a church’s Black Lives Matter banner during a previous rally in the city and on charges of weapons. His arrest removed him from the street, with a court order to stay away from DC on January 6 and later. He pleaded not guilty.
After his arrest, Donohoe “expressed concern” that investigators would have access to Tarrio’s phone, prosecutors said. Therefore, he created a new encrypted message channel for him and other leading Proud Boys members to ‘use,’ and took steps to destroy the previous channel or ‘nuke,’ “prosecutors wrote.
“Everything is in jeopardy and we can look into the charges of Gang,” Donohoe also wrote on encrypted message channels, according to the new charge sheet. “Stop everything immediately,” and “it comes from above,” prosecutors say he wrote.