Proud Boys member sentenced to 6 years in prison for Capitol riot role after berating judge

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A man who stormed the U.S. Capitol with fellow Proud Boys extremist group members was sentenced on Wednesday to six years in prison after he berated and insulted the judge who punished him.

Marc Bru repeatedly interrupted Chief Judge James Boasberg before he handed down the sentence, calling him a “clown” and a “fraud” presiding over a “kangaroo court.” The judge warned Bru that he could be kicked out of the courtroom if he continued to disrupt the proceedings.

“You can give me 100 years and I’d do it all over again,” said Bru, who was handcuffed and shackled.

“That’s the definition of no remorse in my book,” the judge said.

Prosecutors described Bru as one of the least remorseful rioters who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They say Bru planned for an armed insurrection — a “January 6 2.0” attack — to take over the government in Portland, Oregon, several weeks after the deadly riot in Washington, D.C.

“He wanted a repeat of January 6, only he implied this time would be more violent,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing ahead of his sentencing.

Bru has been representing himself with an attorney on standby. He has spewed anti-government rhetoric that appears to be inspired by the sovereign citizen movement. At the start of the hearing, Bru demanded that the judge and a prosecutor turn over five years of their financial records.

The judge gave him a 10-minute break to confer with his standby lawyer before the hearing resumed with more interruptions.

“I don’t accept any of your terms and conditions,” Bru said. “You’re a clown and not a judge.”

Prosecutors had warned the court that Bru intended to disrupt his sentencing. On Tuesday, he called in to a nightly vigil outside the jail where he and other rioters are being held. He told supporters of the detained Jan. 6 defendants that he would “try to put on a good show” at his sentencing.

Boasberg convicted Bru of seven charges, including two felonies, after hearing trial testimony without a jury in October.

Prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of seven years and three months for Bru, a resident of Washington state.

“Bru appears to have envisioned and been planning for a true armed insurrection, and from his post-conviction comments, he appears only to have become further radicalized and angry since then,” they wrote.

Bru absconded before his trial, skipped two court hearings and “defiantly boasted via Twitter that the government would have to come get him if it wanted him.”

“Approximately a month later, it did,” prosecutors added.

Bru represented himself at his bench trial but didn’t present a defense. Instead, he repeatedly proclaimed that he refused to “consent” to the trial and “showed nothing but contempt for the Court and the government,” prosecutors wrote.

Bru flew from Portland, Oregon to Washington a day before then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House. Before Trump’s speech, he joined dozens of other Proud Boys in marching to the Capitol and was one of the first rioters to breach a restricted area near Peace Circle.

Bru grabbed a barricade and shoved it against police officers. He later joined other rioters inside the Capitol and entered the Senate gallery, where he flashed a hand gesture associated with the Proud Boys as he posed for selfie photos. He spent roughly 13 minutes inside the building.

Several weeks after the riot, Bru exchanged text messages with a friend about buying gas masks in bulk. He also texted a Proud Boys recruit and indicated that he wanted to “repeat the violence and lawlessness of January 6 in Portland in order to take over the local government,” prosecutors said.

“In fact, those text messages indicate that Bru’s chief takeaway from January 6 is that it was not violent enough or not sufficiently dedicated to overthrowing the government,” prosecutors wrote. “In other words, in the aftermath of January 6, Bru was plotting an armed insurrection, not feeling remorseful.”

The FBI initially arrested Bru in March 2021 in Vancouver, Washington. After his pretrial release, Bru was charged with separate drunken driving-related offenses in Idaho and Montana.

In July, Bru was secretly living in Montana when a drunken driver hit his car. Police officers who responded to the collision arrested Bru on a warrant stemming from his failure to appear in court before trial. He has “continued to spew disinformation” from jail since his re-arrest and trial, prosecutors said.

“If anything, he appears to be growing more defiant and radicalized,” they wrote.

More than 1,200 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related crimes. About 900 have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials. Over 750 have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving some term of imprisonment, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.