U.S. prosecutors asked a federal judge yesterday to give Proud Boys chief Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and leader Joe Biggs to 33 years in prison and other top members of the far-right extremist group to two to three decades behind bars after four of them were convicted of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 attack. Via the Washington Post:

“The scope of the defendants’ conspiracy is vast. The defendants organized and directed a force of nearly 200 to attack the heart of our democracy,” a crime unparalleled in American history, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jason McCullough and Conor Mulroe wrote. They said the Proud Boys leaders “intentionally positioned themselves at the vanguard of political violence in this country.” The prosecutors urged U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly to hand down stiff sentences to deter others “who would mobilize such … violence in the future.”

The request was the longest punishment sought by the government in the Capitol siege so far, factoring in an enhanced terrorism penalty and violence attributed to Tarrio’s followers who led the assault on police lines. The Proud Boys leaders later this month will be the first alleged instigators of the riot to be sentenced since Trump was federally indicted in connection with the attack. Their punishment could be a harbinger of possible future consequences for the former president in what special counsel Jack Smith called an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy that was “fueled by lies” by Trump.

Tarrio and deputies Biggs, Ethan Nordean, and Zachary Rehl were found guilty this May of plotting to unleash political violence to prevent Congress’s certification of the legitimate electoral results, mobilized by what prosecutors said was Trump’s directive to the group to “stand by” at a September 2020 presidential debate and a December 2020 call for supporters to attend a “wild” rally in Washington.