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Inset: Enrique Tarrio, the former national Proud Boys leader whose 22-year sentence on seditious conspiracy charges was pardoned by President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference, Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier). Background: Supporters of President Donald Trump wearing attire associated with the Proud Boys attend a rally at Freedom Plaza, Dec. 12, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez, File)
The far-right Proud Boys extremist group has lost control of its trademarked name, which has now been handed over to a historically Black church in Washington, D.C., that members of the group vandalized in 2020.
District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Tanya Jones Bosier, a Joe Biden appointee, on Monday ordered Proud Boys International, L.L.C. to transfer its interest in the name to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. The church is now entitled to the group’s interests in the Proud Boys trademark, and the group cannot sell or transfer the name without the church’s consent or the court’s approval, the order said.
“This is our time to stand up, to be very clear to the Proud Boys and their ilk that we came here fighting, that we have never ever capitulated to the violent whims of White supremacist groups,” Rev. William H. Lamar IV, pastor of the Metropolitan AME Church, told CBS Moneywatch. “If they thought we would be afraid, they were wrong. There are many people with us and who stand with us.”
Kaitlin Banner, who represented the church in the case and serves as deputy legal director at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, pointed out the irony.
“From our point of view, it’s fitting that the money the Proud Boys raised in sales and dues will go to fund the good work of the Metropolitan AME,” she told the outlet.
In a Tuesday post on X, Enrique Tarrio, the formerly incarcerated and now pardoned leader of the Proud Boys, vowed retribution.
“This organization, masquerading as a church, must be subjected to a thorough audit, and its nonprofit status revoked immediately,” he wrote. “The judge’s conduct in this case necessitates impeachment and investigation. Their actions are a betrayal of justice, reminiscent of Judas’s treachery. I hold in contempt any motions, judgments, and orders issued against me. Though the corrupt judicial system unjustly confined me two weeks ago, my faith in Jesus Christ has set me free. I pray for their sake they do not suffer the same fate as Pharaoh. However, let it be known: retribution is inevitable.”
In 2023, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed a lawsuit against the Proud Boys on behalf of the church for “engaging in acts of terror and vandalizing church property to intimidate the church and silence its support for racial justice.”
The conduct of the Proud Boys that day, the church said in its lawsuit, “amounted to a new and dangerous chapter in the long and terrible history of white supremacist mob violence targeting Black houses of worship.”
The church won a $2.8 million default judgment against the Proud Boys for the vandalism. This week’s action transferring control of the Proud Boys trademark comes after the Proud Boys failed to pay that judgment.
The events leading to this week’s ruling against the Proud Boys stems from an incident on Dec. 12, 2020, when members of the Proud Boys burned a Black Lives Matter banner at the historic church. Tarrio was arrested days later on felony possession charges that he brought two high-capacity firearm magazines branded with his group’s insignia into Washington, D.C.
That criminal prosecution led Tarrio to be banned from the city on the day of the siege on the Capitol, but several other Proud Boys attended and were later indicted and prosecuted in connection to the riot. Tarrio was not present at the Capitol during the riots, but he was convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison — the longest of any Jan. 6 rioter — for seditious conspiracy.
He wound up being among the 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by President Donald Trump on Inauguration Day.
