WASHINGTON — The former head of DC Police’s intelligence branch was a “sympathizer” of the far-right Proud Boys who leaked sensitive law enforcement information about an investigation into their national chairman, federal prosecutors told a judge Monday.
Lt. Shane Lamond, now retired, began a bench trial this week on federal charges of obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI about his relationship with former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio. Lamond was the head of the department’s intelligence branch when Tarrio became the subject of an investigation into the Proud Boys’ burning of a historic Black church’s Black Lives Matter banner following a rally in support of former President Donald Trump in December 2020. Lamond opted to waive his right to a jury trial earlier this year and instead have his case heard by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
As head of the intelligence branch, it was Lamond’s job to monitor upcoming protest activity in the District and to learn what groups like the Proud Boys, which had a history of engaging in street violence in the city, had planned. Lamond had been in contact with Tarrio since meeting him at a protest in 2019. According to evidence presented by prosecutors on Monday, that relationship largely involved a one-way flow of information – from Tarrio to Lamond. That relationship changed, they said, once the department began investigating Tarrio for the banner burning. Prosecutors said Lamond let his sympathies for the group get in the way of his responsibilities as an officer and alleged he began leaking confidential information about the ongoing investigation to Tarrio. That culminated, they said, in tipping Tarrio off that a warrant had been signed for his arrest.
“The defendant became a double agent for the Proud Boys – funneling them sensitive police information through secretive means,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Josh Rothstein said during the government’s opening statements Monday.
According to testimony from an FBI digital forensic examiner, Lamond and Tarrio increasingly began communicating via encrypted messages on Telegram. Unlike iMessage, which they had used previously, many of those Telegram messages had a self-destruct timer that would automatically delete them after a short period of time. The FBI was unable to recover numerous exchanges between Lamond and Tarrio following the beginning of the investigation in December 2020 and continuing past Tarrio’s arrest in early 2021.
Lamond’s attorneys, Mark E. Schamel and Ana L. Jara, argued Monday the government has taken his communications with Tarrio out of context. They said it was his job to obtain information from sources exactly like Tarrio about their plans in the District, and argued none of the information he’d provided Tarrio was designated sensitive by the department. While Jackson said in a previous hearing that the trial had nothing to do with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Schamel indicated Monday he would be entering evidence showing Lamond’s continued communications with Tarrio after the December 2020 flag burning investigation was launched were intended to elicit information about what plans the Proud Boys had for what was then planned to be a “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse.
The Proud Boys ultimately played an outsized role on Jan. 6 – participating in nearly every breach of police barricades and assaulting multiple officers – and Tarrio and other leaders of the group were convicted last year of seditious conspiracy and a slew of other charges. Tarrio, who was barred from being in D.C. due to his arrest on Jan. 4, 2021, in connection with the banner burning case, is currently serving a 22-year sentence in federal prison for his role in organizing the Proud Boys that day. He previously served five months in prison after pleading guilty to burning the banner and to illegally possessing two large-capacity magazines in D.C.
Lamond’s trial had been scheduled to start on at least two earlier dates this year, but was delayed over Tarrio’s availability as a defense witness. In January, Schamel said he’d spoken with Tarrio and believed he could be a “compelling and very important” witness for the defense. Tarrio’s availability was the subject of a sealed hearing in September that resulted in a previous trial date being vacated. During court Monday, Jackson said Tarrio had been reluctant to take the stand until he knew the results of the presidential election. That concern, she suggested, was now allayed.
Prosecutors said Monday they had paired their case down to just nine witnesses, four of which they called Monday, and expected to be finished in less than three days. In addition to Tarrio, Lamond’s attorneys have indicated they intend to call other law enforcement officials to testify in his defense, including John Donohue, Lamond’s former counterpart as head of the U.S. Capitol Police’s intelligence division.