WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday sentencing a Proud Boy and member of the anti-government sovereign citizen movement to six years in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as part of a pro-Trump mob.
Marc Anthony Bru, 43, of Vancouver, Washington, was convicted in October of five misdemeanor counts and two felony counts of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding. Bru declined to offer a defense during his trial and said little except to repeat that he did not consent to the proceeding.
“You are outside of your jurisdiction,” Bru said in lieu of giving a closing argument. “You have trafficked me and you have committed war crimes against me.”
Bru was similarly defiant during his sentencing hearing Wednesday. He interrupted an assistant U.S. attorney to accuse D.C. District Chief Judge James Boasberg of running a "kangaroo court" and demanded five years of tax returns from both the judge and prosecutors. He also said, in no uncertain terms, that he felt no remorse about what he'd done on Jan. 6.
"You can give me a hundred years and I'd do it all over again," he said.
Bru – who expressed his belief online that if President Joe Biden were inaugurated it would cause the U.S. to be overtaken by “globalist,” communist elites – marched to the Capitol on Jan. 6 with other members of the far-right Proud Boys. There, he joined others in pushing against bike rack barricades yelling at officers that they were going to “die for the corporation.” Many members of the sovereign citizen movement believe the U.S. government is not a legitimate government but rather a corporation. Bru eventually made it all the way into the Senate Gallery, where he posed for “celebratory selfies.”
In their sentencing memo, prosecutors said Bru didn’t stop at Jan. 6. After returning home, Bru reportedly sought to buy gas masks in bulk and “made plans to lead a violent, armed insurrection to take over the government in Portland, Oregon,” according to the sentencing memo.
After his initial arrest, Bru was charged with two DUIs and then absconded shortly before his July 2023 trial date. He was eventually re-arrested in Montana after he was involved in a traffic collision.
Prosecutors asked D.C. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg to sentence Bru to 87 months, or more than seven years, in prison for his “utter lack of remorse and the danger that Bru continues to pose to the community today.”
"The question about whether Mr. Bru will reoffend has to some extent already been answered by Mr. Bru himself, who has declared over and over that these laws do not apply to him," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon said Wednesday.
An attorney assigned to assist Bru as standby counsel filed a motion with the court saying Bru had given him “explicit instructions” not to file a sentencing memo of any kind. Bru instead filed an “affidavit in memorandum of law” claiming he was the victim of a racketeering scheme perpetrated against the public.
Boasberg ultimately sentenced Bru to 72 months, or six years, in prison. He said after Jan. 6 Bru had attempted to "radicalize others and foment unrest" in Oregon and that he had shown zero remorse throughout the past three years of proceedings.
"As you sit here today, you say even if you got a hundred years you'd do it all over again," Boasberg said.
"That's correct," Bru responded.
"In my book that's the definition of no remorse," Boasberg said.
Bru was also ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution and more than $7,900 in fines for money he'd raised through a GiveSendGo account about his case. He requested a recommendation for placement at FCI Sheridan, a medium-security federal prison in Oregon near his home.