5 Proud Boys leaders want the government to pay them $100 million in restitution for Jan. 6 convictions

Chris Palmer, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Jun 6, 2025

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Zach Rehl, the former leader of the Philadelphia Proud Boys who was convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in helping incite the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, has sued the government, saying he and four other Proud Boys leaders who were charged alongside him were illegally prosecuted and had their constitutional rights violated in the process.

In a suit filed Friday in federal court in Florida, Rehl and the other Proud Boys leaders — whose sentences were commuted by President Donald Trump earlier this year — said the cases against them were “corrupt and politically motivated.”

They also made several explosive claims about the way federal authorities behaved during their prosecutions, saying the FBI and Justice Department had them arrested without probable cause, tapped and recorded their phone conversations with attorneys, and illegally placed confidential informants among their ranks.

And although none of those who sued received a full pardon from Trump — and their convictions stand — they nonetheless asked for restitution and monetary damages totaling at least $100 million.

“(T)he government got its fondest wish of imprisoning the J6 Defendants,” the suit says, “the modern equivalent of placing one’s enemies’ heads on a spike outside the town wall as a warning to any who would think to challenge the status quo.”

The suit could put the Trump administration in the unusual position of having to defend an investigation that Trump has both fiercely criticized and sought to undo. Although the Justice Department under former President Joe Biden secured thousands of convictions for crimes connected to the melee, Trump has repeatedly sought to downplay the chaos of that day — when a right-wing mob stormed the building in an unsuccessful effort to keep him in power — and described those who were prosecuted as patriots and victims of a corrupt system.

In January, just hours after Trump was sworn into office for a second term, he pardoned nearly all of the 1,500 people charged with participating in the riot and commuted the sentences of 14 accused ringleaders, including Rehl and the four others who filed suit on Friday: Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Dominic Pezzola.

Their commutations cleared the way for them to be released from prison, where each had been serving sentences of at least 10 years. Rehl had been serving a 15-year term at a medium-security prison in Virginia.

In the lawsuit, Rehl said he experienced “cruel and unusual” conditions while he was jailed and awaiting trial, including being placed in chains in solitary confinement and denied food.

And he and the other men said they were subjected to “egregious and systemic abuse of the legal system and the United States Constitution to punish and oppress political allies of President Trump, by any and all means necessary, legal, or illegal.”

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