A national leader of the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, asked a judge on Monday to release him from the D.C. jail and place him on home confinement, citing what he described as inhumane conditions in the facility.
Wp Get the full experience.Choose your plan ArrowRight
Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, who has served 70 days of a five-month jail term, pleaded guilty in August to two crimes, including setting fire to a stolen Black Lives Matter banner during a tumultuous demonstration in Washington after the election defeat of former president Donald Trump.
Appearing in D.C. Superior Court via video, Tarrio, 37, and his attorney said Tarrio has endured abuse from staff members, unsanitary conditions, poor food and a lack of medical care. The complaints echoed the findings of a surprise inspection of the facility last month by the U.S. Marshals Service, which listed numerous “systemic failures” at the 45-year-old jail in Southeast Washington.
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
“I’ve been in jail before, but what I’ve seen here, I’ve never seen before,” Tarrio told Judge Jonathan H. Pittman. “It’s insane. It’s a gulag.”
At Monday’s hearing, a lawyer for the D.C. Department of Corrections disputed many of Tarrio’s assertions, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Courtney argued that Tarrio’s emergency motion for release, filed Nov. 9, was legally improper. Courtney said the correct course would be for Tarrio to file a lawsuit, which is a more protracted process.
Pittman said he would issue a ruling later this week, but on the bench Monday, he seemed to side with the government.
“It’s obviously distressing to hear of these conditions,” he said of the Marshals Service’s findings and Tarrio’s complaints. But the poor conditions are not unique to Tarrio, the judge noted. “What makes Mr. Tarrio different from all the other prisoners?” If he were allowed to finish his sentence on home confinement, “why isn’t everybody else?”
Advertisement
Story continues below advertisement
In the Nov. 9 motion, Tarrio’s lawyer Lucas I. Dansie said his client’s cell was flooded with foul toilet water that overflowed from an adjacent cell, while the water in Tarrio’s cell “remains shut off … as retribution for some unknown act that [Tarrio] never committed.”
He said Tarrio’s “meals are literally thrown in his cell, cold and frequently inedible,” and his “requests for medical treatment have been completely ignored.”
Among other instances of mistreatment, the lawyer said, “a correctional officer slammed Mr. Tarrio against the wall for no apparent reason, telling him that ‘you shouldn’t have done what you did,’ presumably referring to” the BLM banner burning.
Story continues below advertisement
The surprise inspection by the Marshals Service, conducted Oct. 18 to Oct. 22, found that water in some parts of the facility “had been shut off for days” as punishment, creating an “overpowering” stench from “standing human sewage,” according to Lamont J. Ruffin, the acting marshal for U.S. District Court in Washington.
Advertisement
Meals that were supposed to be hot were “served cold and congealed”; some inmates had “observable injuries” for which no documentation was available; and “evidence of drug use was pervasive,” including the “widespread” odor of marijuana, Ruffin reported.
Most of the roughly 1,500 inmates at the jail, including Tarrio, have local criminal cases in D.C. Superior Court. But several hundred others have federal cases in U.S. District Court. The findings of the inspection prompted the Justice Department to announce that 400 federal prisoners would be transferred from the jail to the U.S. penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pa., a process that authorities said began last week.
Story continues below advertisement
The Marshals Service and the D.C. government signed a legal document Nov. 9 in which they agreed to work together to improve conditions at the jail.
Advertisement
The banner that Tarrio admitted burning was stolen Dec. 12 from a historic Black church in Washington as far-right protesters marched in support of Trump’s effort to delegitimize President Biden’s election victory.
After pleading guilty to destruction of property and to a charge of attempted possession of a high-capacity ammunition magazine, Tarrio was sentenced to 155 days behind bars. He reported to jail Sept. 6 to begin serving his time.
After 32 years in prison for a double murder he says he didn’t commit, he now seeks a pardon
Army veteran falsely claimed to be paraplegic, obtained more than $1 million in benefits, prosecutors allege
The rise and fall of the Jack Daniel’s committee: How D.C.’s police lodge made thousands selling whiskey online