Ex-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio arrested near Capitol on assault charge after press conference

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Proud Boys national leader Enrique Tarrio was arrested Friday near the U.S. Capitol on a charge that he assaulted a woman protesting a gathering attended by Tarrio and others who received presidential pardons for crimes stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot in the nation’s capital.

Capitol police said officers saw Tarrio strike the protester’s cellphone and arm after the woman placed the phone close to his face as they walked near the Capitol. Tarrio had just left a news conference that had ended “without incident,” police said.

“The woman told our officers that she wanted to be a complainant, and the man was arrested for the simple assault,” police said in a statement.

An attorney who represented Tarrio in his Capitol riot case didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Tarrio, of Miami, was serving a 22-year sentence — the longest among hundreds of Capitol riot cases — when President Donald Trump granted clemency last month to all 1,500-plus people charged in the Jan. 6 attack.

A jury convicted Tarrio and three of his lieutenants of seditious conspiracy for a violent plot to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Trump to President Joe Biden after the 2020 election.

Tarrio attended a press conference Friday with other Proud Boys and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who also was convicted of seditious conspiracy but freed from prison last month after Trump commuted his 18-year sentence.