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The founder of Hawaii’s Proud Boys chapter and a Texas man were sentenced Friday to four years each in prison for their participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Nicholas Ochs, 36, of Honolulu, and Nicholas DeCarlo, 32, of Fort Worth, Texas, threw smoke bombs at police, illegally entered the Capitol and filmed themselves smoking cigarettes inside, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said in a statement Friday.
The pair pleaded guilty in September to obstruction of an official proceeding.
DeCarlo also wrote “Murder the Media” with a marker on the Chestnut-Gibson Memorial Door to the Capitol as Ochs recorded, prosecutors said.
The phrase was what the two called an online channel they used to communicate, prosecutors said. DeCarlo is seen in images from the day wearing a shirt and hat with the phrase, they said.
In their sentencing memo, prosecutors tried to convey the seriousness of the duo’s crime, and said Ochs had pointed lost rioters toward the Speaker’s Office.
“These were no teenage pranks,” they wrote. “Ochs’ conduct targeted the police and Congress — and like the conduct of every rioter that day, threatened democracy itself.”
Ochs was a second generation U.S. Marine who was once stationed in Hawaii.
In a 2020 election for a seat in the Hawaii Legislature, Ochs lost to Adrian Tam, a 28-year-old gay Asian American son of immigrants. Tam’s win — with 63% of the vote — made him the first openly LGBTQ+ representative in the state chamber.
The defense for both DeCarlo and Ochs’ asked for 18 month sentences.
DeCarlo’s defense team argued he didn’t participate in the events of Jan. 6 with “glee” and didn’t coordinate with other members of the far-right group Proud Boys. They said he resigned from Proud Boys in 2019, but was being treated as a member of the group — and thus as a greater threat than he is — by prosecutors.
Several Proud Boys members have been indicted on charges in connection with the Capitol attack. The FBI has labeled the Proud Boys an “extremist group with ties to white nationalism.”
The sentences for Ochs and DeCarlo include 3 years of supervised release, as well as restitution and special assessment fees, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Ochs was also ordered to pay a $5,000, and DeCarlo a $2,500 fine.
More than 280 people prosecutors have connected to the attack have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
