Former Proud Boy from Miami is sent to prison for role in Jan. 6 assault on US Capitol

Jay Weaver, Miami Herald on Dec 6, 2024

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MIAMI — Gabriel Garcia, a former Miami Proud Boy who was active in local Republican politics, was sentenced on Friday to a year in prison after being found guilty of two felonies related to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Garcia was also ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution to the U.S. government.

Garcia, 43, was accused of participating in aggressive confrontations with police and helping other rioters storm the Capitol. Garcia also recorded himself inside the Capitol during the riot and posted a video in which he can be heard taunting then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to “come out and play.”

At a bench trial in November 2023, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson found Garcia guilty of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding.

Garcia, a former U.S. Army captain, was arrested on Jan. 19, 2021, less than two weeks after a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Several other South Florida-based members of the Proud Boys — an extremist, white-nationalist group — have also faced charges stemming from the riot in Washington, D.C. In one of the most notable cases, the group’s former leader — Enrique Tarrio, a Miami native — was convicted last year on charges of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison.

Tarrio was convicted alongside three other Proud Boys of plotting to attack the Capitol in hopes of keeping Trump in power. A fifth defendant was cleared of sedition but was convicted of other felonies.

Garcia has a history in Miami-Dade County politics. In addition to once sitting on the Miami-Dade GOP’s Executive Committee, he ran an unsuccessful challenge to Florida state Rep. Daniel Perez in 2020.

After his arrest in 2021, Garcia was released from detention on $100,000 bond.

He repeatedly asked the court to remove his GPS ankle monitor, arguing it embarrassed him around business clients and posed a work-safety hazard. He traveled often in the years since his arrest but was eventually placed on home detention by Berman Jackson after he attended the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2023 without the judge’s authorization.

Since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 1,572 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the Capitol. More than 590 of them have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, a felony. Of those charged, 944 have been convicted and received sentences, according to the Justice Department.

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