A former leader of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced on Tuesday to more than three years behind bars for joining a plot to attack the US Capitol nearly three years ago. Charles Donohoe was the second Proud Boy to plead guilty to conspiring with other group members to obstruct the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress for certifying President Biden's electoral victory. His sentence could be a bellwether for other Proud Boys conspirators who agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. Donohoe, 35, of Kernersville, North Carolina, apologized to his family, the law-enforcement officers who guarded the Capitol on Jan. 6, and "America as a whole" for his actions on Jan. 6, per the AP.
"I knew what I was doing was illegal from the very moment those barricades got knocked down," he said. US District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced him to three years and four months in prison. Donohoe could be eligible for release in a month or two because he gets credit for the jail time he already has served since his March 2021 arrest. The judge said Donohoe seems to be doing everything in his power to make amends for his crimes. "I think you've got all the ingredients here to put this behind you," Kelly said.
Donohoe was president of a local Proud Boys chapter in North Carolina. He was a lieutenant of former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison—the longest prison term so far in a Capitol riot case. Donohoe agreed to cooperate with federal authorities when he pleaded guilty in April 2020 to two felony counts: conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting or impeding police. But he wasn't called to testify at the trial of Tarrio and other Proud Boys earlier this year. (More Proud Boys stories.)
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