WASHINGTON — A Florida Proud Boy and former member of the Miami-Dade County Republican Executive Committee was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison for his role in the Capitol riot.
In October, Gilbert Fonticoba, of Hialeah, Florida, was convicted after a stipulated bench trial of two felony counts of obstruction of an official proceeding and civil disorder. He appeared before U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly on Thursday facing a sentencing guidelines range of 51-63 months in prison and a recommendation from the government that he serve 60 months, or five years. Fonticoba, a single father who also serves as caretaker for his elderly mother, sought a sentence of less than five months in prison.
Kelly, who presided over the seditious conspiracy trials last year of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and other high-ranking members of the group, said he didn’t think Fonticoba’s conduct was as aggravated as other Proud Boys and granted a slight downward variance to 48 months, or four years, in prison. But, Kelly said, he also couldn’t overlook Fonticoba’s role in the riot.
“You were part of a 100-man-strong fighting force that circled the Capitol,” he said.
Fonticoba was right behind Proud Boys leaders Joe Biggs and Ethan Nordean when they began dismantling a bike rack barricade outnumbered officers were using to attempt to hold the crowd at bay on the west side of the building. He admitted as part of his stipulated trial that he also helped dismantle the barricade, and that he then entered the Capitol behind other Proud Boys who forced their way past police lines. It was a fellow Proud Boy, Dominic Pezzola, who used a stolen police riot shield to create the first breach of the building.
Fonticoba had also traveled to D.C. with the Proud Boys at least two other times after the 2020 election, and came to the District again on Jan. 6 with members of the group including Gabriel Garcia, a former U.S. Army captain who was convicted in November of the same charges as Fonticoba. Both Fonticoba and Garcia were members of the Vice City chapter of the Proud Boys founded by Tarrio, as well as members of the Miami-Dade Republican Executive Committee, according to reporting by the New York Times. Garcia unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives in 2020.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough said Fonticoba helped embolden other members of his group by acting as “muscle” and that he actively promoted a false narrative about antifa and police instigating the riot. He said Fonticoba’s previous trips with the Proud Boys to D.C., both of which saw the streets devolve into nighttime violence, showed Jan. 6 wasn’t an aberration for him.
“Mr. Fonticoba was on a march to the Capitol long before Jan. 6 at 10 a.m.,” McCullough said.
In his sentencing memo, defense attorney Aubrey Webb said Fonticoba has spent the three years since the Capitol riot undertaking the “long process of de-radicalization” from the Proud Boys and political extremism. On Thursday, he repeatedly described Fonticoba as “naïve” and said the anti-authoritarian bent of his upbringing as a child of Cuban immigrants allowed him to be more easily swayed by partisan rhetoric.
Fonticoba also spoke briefly Thursday – weeping while asking Kelly not to impose a prison sentence.
“I have brought shame upon my family through my actions on Jan. 6,” Fonticoba said.
Fonticoba is the latest member of the Proud Boys to receive time behind bars for their role in the Capitol riot. Last week, another Florida member of the group, Christopher Worrell, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for assaulting police with pepper gel on the west side of the Capitol. In December, Charles Donohoe, a North Carolina leader of the group, received more than three years in prison as part of a plea deal with the government. Four other leaders of the group who were convicted at trial of seditious conspiracy last year received more than a decade in prison each. Tarrio, the group’s former national chairman, was sentenced by Kelly to 22 years in prison.
Kelly agreed to allow Fonticoba to self-report to the Bureau of Prisons on or after April 12 and to recommend he be placed at FCI Miami near his home. Kelly also agreed to recommend Fonticoba be screened for the Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP), which can shave time off federal inmates’ prison sentences if successfully completed. The judge denied a request from the government to order Fonticoba be placed on GPS monitoring prior to reporting to the BOP.