WASHINGTON — Five Proud Boys accused of plotting to incite violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 put their fates in a jury’s hands Tuesday – but not before joining together to urge them to discount the testimony from a key government witness.
All five defendants, including former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and Dominic Pezzola – the Marine Corps veteran who used a shield to smash in a window at the Capitol – made their final pleas to the jury this week after more than four months of trial. Tarrio repeated what he’d told jurors in January: That he was a scapegoat for more powerful people, namely former President Donald Trump, the Justice Department was either unable or unwilling to charge. Pezzola took a different approach. He claimed he was defending himself and others when he attempted to rip a riot shield out of an officer’s hands.
Though the defendants took different tactics – Norm Pattis, an attorney for former Infowars employee Joe Biggs even took a pot shot at Pezzola’s defense, saying in open court, “I’m glad that’s not my argument” – they all agreed on one thing. Namely, that jurors shouldn’t believe former North Carolina Proud Boy and key DOJ witness Jeremy Bertino.
Bertino pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and firearms charges in October in exchange for an agreement to cooperate in the prosecutions against his fellow Proud Boys. Bertino was stabbed during a violent night in D.C. in December 2020 – a night which prosecutors said led the Proud Boys to begin turning against police. Though his injury kept him away from the city on Jan. 6, he added Pezzola and other members to the group’s “Ministry of Self-Defense” (MOSD) chapter and was active on the day in encouraging other Proud Boys to storm the Capitol.
“Form a spear,” Bertino wrote just before 1 p.m. in response to a MOSD leadership chat indicated Proud Boys had just stormed the building. A minute later, he wrote, “Storming the capitol building right now!!” and “Get there.”
Bertino spent days on the stand testifying about what he believed to be an implicit understanding among the group that their goal was to disrupt the certification of the election on Jan. 6.
“I believed we were supposed to be the leaders of the country, of the right wing,” Bertino said. “The tip of the spear.”
Attorneys for the Proud Boys’ defense took their time grilling Bertino on the stand – particularly about the details of his plea agreement and the gun charges he hoped to ameliorate through it. This week, they were even more direct.
“Mr. Bertino may not be reducing his gun sentence that much in the end,” Nick Smith, attorney for Ethan Nordean said, “because, after all, lying under oath on the stand in trial, which he did, is another crime."
Though Bertino has never been charged with lying under oath, it was a refrain jurors heard repeatedly Tuesday. Nayib Hassan, one of the attorneys representing Tarrio, repeatedly asked jurors to be skeptical of “Lying Bertino,” as he called him. He suggested it was Bertino who co-opted the group after his client’s arrest days earlier for burning a Black Lives Matter banner.
"It was Bertino that had an agenda,” Hassan said. “It was Bertino who wanted what happened at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6."
Pattis, in a speech that wandered through subjects as diverse as the Peloponnesian War and the Black Death, lamented the state of the country and said Bertino used it to further his aims.
"Bonds of civility still hold, even if some things are not really where they're supposed to be,” Pattis said. “But some people, like Jeremy Bertino, took advantage of those divisions."
Steve Metcalf, one of two attorneys representing Pezzola, took a more direct route.
"There's 3,000 reasons in bullets alone as to why Jeremy Bertino took that plea!" he said.
Jurors were officially handed the case late Tuesday afternoon following rebuttal arguments from the Justice Department and were set to begin their deliberations Wednesday morning. Juries who heard previous conspiracy cases against members of the Oath Keepers took days, and in one case more than a week, to return a verdict. If convicted of any of the most serious charges against them, the Proud Boys could potentially face years in prison.
Prosecutors recently asked a judge to continue holding off setting a sentencing date in Bertino's case to allow his cooperation agreement to continue. According to the terms of his agreement, he could ultimately face roughly four-to-five years in prison — although the Justice Department could ask for a downward variance in return for his assistance in other prosecutions.
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