A federal judge on Friday dismissed the last remaining convictions against four Proud Boys leaders stemming from the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, closing out one of the Justice Department’s highest-profile prosecutions of the Trump era.
District Judge Timothy Kelly granted a DOJ motion to vacate the convictions of Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. The dismissals were entered with prejudice, meaning the charges cannot be brought again.
Kelly, a Trump appointee who presided over the months-long trials, acknowledged he did not personally agree with the DOJ’s decision to abandon the prosecutions or with President Trump’s blanket pardons of January 6 defendants. But he said the law gave him no choice.
“Indeed, it is hard to see how any course other than granting the motion in full could make practical sense,” Kelly wrote in a seven-page memorandum opinion.
“The Court lacks the authority to compel the Executive to pursue a prosecution, full stop. Especially when an executive order explicitly requires that the Government seek dismissal with prejudice,” he added.
Three of the four men had been convicted of seditious conspiracy, among the most serious charges the government pursued against any January 6 defendant. Nordean, Biggs and Rehl each received sentences ranging from 15 to 18 years. Pezzola was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted on other felony counts, including breaking a Capitol window that allowed rioters to enter the building.
Trump commuted and pardoned the sentences of all four men on his first day back in office in January 2025, along with nearly all others convicted in connection with the Capitol breach.
Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys national chairman who was sentenced to 22 years on seditious conspiracy charges, had his sentence similarly reduced. Tarrio posted on X Friday night that the ruling marked a final vindication.
“We took the worst they threw at us: the raids, the solitary, the lies. And we stood tall,” Tarrio wrote. “Trump dropped the pardons and now the rest is crumbling. Justice is SERVED! Proud Boys don’t lose. We WIN.”
Rehl also posted on X following the ruling. “Finally, it’s ALL OVER! January 6th can now be a thing of the past for me!”
Kelly noted in his opinion that President Trump’s views on the January 6 prosecutions “whether those views are based on fact or fiction” were well known before the DOJ moved to dismiss, and that executive authority over prosecutorial decisions rested squarely with the president.
The dismissals mark the formal end of the federal government’s seditious conspiracy cases against the Proud Boys, a chapter that began with raids, trials and multi-decade sentences and ended with a presidential order directing DOJ to walk away.
