Volusia County Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs, who was sentenced to a lengthy term in federal prison for his role in the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, had his sentence commuted on Monday by President Donald Trump.
Biggs, who lived near Ormond Beach, was sentenced in August 2023 to 17 years in federal prison after a trial in Washington, D.C.
Biggs’ defense attorney Norman Pattis wrote in an email Monday night that Trump had commuted Biggs’ sentence.
What does it mean to commute a sentence?
The commutation means Biggs will be released from prison but the conviction will remain.
Biggs had not been scheduled for release until Dec. 7, 2035, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons website.
Trump pardoned about 1,500 people charged in the Capitol attack and commuted the sentences of 14, including Biggs and other Proud Boys members, according to a USA Today story. Trump also commuted the sentences of Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes.
Biggs found guilty of seditious conspiracy, other charges
Biggs was among four Proud Boys found guilty of seditious conspiracy for their part in leading Trump’s supporters into storming the U.S. Capitol and disrupting the certification of the 2020 election declaring Joe Biden the winner.
Besides seditious conspiracy, Biggs was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of an official proceeding; conspiracy to use force, intimidation or threats to prevent officers of the United States from discharging their duties; interference with law enforcement during a civil disorder; and destruction of government property.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Biggs to 17 years, which the judge said was enhanced based on a ruling that the crimes constituted terrorism because they were intended to influence the government. But the sentence was still short of the 33 years requested by federal prosecutors.
“I know that I messed up that day,” Biggs told the judge just before being sentenced according to a previous story, “but I’m not a terrorist.”
Capitol Police: Biggs started ‘turning the tables’ on police
Biggs was in the spotlight during the testimony of a police officer concerning Jan. 6.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards testified during the Jan. 6 Committee hearings in 2022 that it was Biggs who started “turning the tables” on a handful of police officers and as they faced off with a crowd of Proud Boys and others on Jan. 6, 2021. She said Biggs, using a megaphone, led the rioters in the face off with police at a bike rack at the Peace Circle. Edwards testified that she knew when she was being turned into a villain.
Biggs tore down a fence, charged up scaffolding and was among the first rioters to breach the Capitol, prosecutors said. Biggs entered the building a second time and went to the Senate chamber, prosecutors said.
Biggs is among more than 1,532 people from nearly every state federal prosecutors charged for crimes related to the Capitol breach. Of those, more than 571 have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, a felony.
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