WASHINGTON — A Proud Boys leader had frequent contacts with a DC Police intelligence officer about the group’s plans leading up to Jan. 6 — and may have received a tip about his impending arrest — jurors heard this week in the ongoing seditious conspiracy trial of five men.
An attorney for former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio entered 18 pages of chats into evidence between his client and DC Police Lt. Shane Lamond, who was serving as the head of the department’s intelligence branch at the time. Part of Lamond's assignment was to communicate with groups that were planning on traveling to D.C. for protests. Lamond was suspended early last year amid an investigation into his communications with Tarrio, according to a report by the Washington Post. On Tuesday an FBI special agent confirmed the investigation remains active while testifying as a witness for the government.
“My understanding is that these chats are the focus of a separate FBI investigation,” Special Agent Peter Dubrowski said during cross-examination.
Lamond has not been charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing. His attorney Mark E. Schamel told the Post last year his client "has never done anything to assist the criminals who attacked our democracy on January 6th.” Schamel did not respond to a request from WUSA9 for comment this week.
Pre-Jan. 6 communications between Tarrio and Lamond were the subject of a number of filings in the case last year. In an August discovery motion, Tarrio’s attorney Nayib Hassan described Lamond as Tarrio’s “point of contact” with the DC Police Department. Hassan’s motion included a text between Lamond and a DC Police commander about the Proud Boys’ decision not to wear their yellow-and-black colors when they came to D.C. on Jan. 6.
“We saw this yesterday He (Tarrio) told me (Lt. Lamond) they (Proud Boys) are trying to go incognito this time,” Lamond wrote in the text. “Even if they aren’t wearing their colors they will stick together as a group so we should be able to identify them. Not to mention they won’t be head to toe in black with makeshift shields!”
Jurors saw of additional messages between the two men this week, including discussions about the possibility of the D.C. bar the Proud Boys frequented being shut down and a conversation the day before a violent confrontation between the group and counter-protesters about where members of antifa would likely be.
"Antifa should be staying up at BLM Plaza," Lamond told Tarrio on Dec. 11, 2020 — the day before four members of the Proud Boys were stabbed following a pro-Trump march in the city. "Do you want me to let our uniformed officers know that or keep it to myself? I will be around all night in case anything kicks off."
Tarrio was eventually arrested on Jan. 4, 2021, in connection with the burning of a church's BLM flag weeks earlier. In a Dec. 30, 2020, Telegram chat shown to jurors, Tarrio told other Proud Boys he knew the arrest was coming.
"The n***** is going to jail," he wrote.
On Dec. 25, Lamond told Tarrio he'd been asked to identify a picture of him and said an arrest warrant might have been submitted. Prosecutors entered evidence of a lengthy phone call between the two men five days later on Dec. 30 — the same day he told other Proud Boys he was going to jail — but the contents of that call were not available. On the day he was arrested, Tarrio told the group he'd learned the arrest warrant had been signed but it was unclear where he received that information.
Tarrio and four other members of the Proud Boys began trial last month on a slew of charges, including a count of seditious conspiracy. Prosecutors have alleged Tarrio and other Proud Boys leaders planned to incite the attack on the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6 with the purpose of helping former President Donald Trump remain in power. Six members of the Oath Keepers, including militia founder Stewart Rhodes, have been convicted of the same rarely used seditious conspiracy charge at separate trials for their participation in Jan. 6.
All five defendants on trial this week have denied any plan to attack the Capitol. Tarrio’s attorneys told jurors during opening statements that he was being used as a “scapegoat” for the real instigator of the riot — namely, they said, the former president — and put forward what they’ve described as Tarrio’s long-standing respect for law enforcement as evidence he wouldn’t have planned an attack on police. That respect, they’ve said in court and in filings, included relationships with police departments around the country, including in D.C., Miami and Portland.
“Prior to any rally or protest that the Proud Boys would attend, they would always communicate with the appropriate law enforcement agencies as per standard operating procedure,” Hassan wrote in an August 2022 filing. "The communications included (1) notification that the organization would be attending a rally/protest, (2) request/organize sufficient law enforcement presence for security so that the Proud Boys would not be in danger of any attacks by extreme left-wing groups, and (3) coordinate the staging area and route to avoid extreme left wing group areas and any potential conflicts.”
Hassan also listed multiple Proud Boys trips to D.C. between July 2019 and Jan. 6, 2021 and said prior to each visit the group “informed Metro DC police of all their intended locations and their intended route with their live location.”
In court this week, a second attorney representing Tarrio at trial, Sabino Jauregui, accused the government of trying to poison the jury against Lamond in case the defense tried to call him as a witness.
“What they’ve done is they’ve dragged his name through the mud," Jauregui said. "They’ve insinuated that he’s a dirty cop.”
Jauregui argued they could show Lamond frequently passed on information he received from Tarrio to his superiors and even to other law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Capitol Police.
“We can show message after message showing that the information from my client was good, it was valid, and that it was communicated up the chain of command," Jauregui said.
Jauregui said Lamond remained on Tarrio's witness list, despite prior representations that the officer was expected to assert his Fifth Amendment rights on the stand due to the ongoing investigation.
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