WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — A former member of the Philadelphia Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol along with top leaders of the militant, far-right organization was sentenced to 100 days behind bars Tuesday — far less than what prosecutors had sought.

Brian Healion, 34, of Drexel Hill, apologized for his actions during the unprecedented riot, which interrupted Congressional certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and threatened the peaceful transfer of presidential power.

“I made a big mistake,” he told U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly during a hearing Tuesday in Washington. “I let a lot of people down ... and I’m very sorry for that.”

But Kelly — who has presided over several Jan. 6 cases involving the Proud Boys including the last year’s sedition trial of three top-ranking members and its former national chairman, Enrique Tarrio — said he viewed Healion’s association with the right-wing organization as “relevant only on the margins” when it came to determining his punishment.

“I don’t think the fact that he is a member of the Proud Boys — or any organized group is particularly relevant,” the judge said, adding later: “Many, many people showed up that day and did things that were much, much worse. ... The core thing I’m looking at are his actions.”

Prosecutors disagreed. They’d pushed for 15 months — more than two times what was recommended by federal sentencing guidelines in Healion’s case.

His conduct during the riot may not have differed significantly from the hundreds of others who have been charged with only misdemeanors and sentenced to terms of probation — he did not assault police; he did not destroy property. But his participation in the Proud Boys’ early planning for violence that day set him apart and was worthy of a more significant sentence, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle M. McWaters said.

“Healion’s choice to march to and invade the Capitol grounds with other Proud Boys intent on obstruction and violence — and even sedition — made his conduct all the more dangerous,” McWaters wrote, “and the objective — obstruction of the certification — all the more likely to succeed.”

Healion, an assistant store manager for Fresh Grocer, is the second member of the Proud Boys Philadelphia chapter to be sentenced for playing a role in the Capitol attack. Its former leader, Zachary Rehl, is serving a 15-year sentence at a federal prison in Virginia after he was convicted at the sedition trial last year.

Two others — Isaiah Giddings, 31, and Freedom Vy, 39 — have both pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts and are awaiting sentencing.

Healion’s case fell somewhere in-between. While he pleaded guilty in February to one count of interfering with law enforcement during a civil disorder, his involvement in the pre-riot planning was minimal — and, Kelly noted, prosecutors had not opted to charge him with participating in the conspiracy.

In December 2020, Rehl hand-selected Healion and a few other members of Philadelphia Proud Boys to participate in the group’s preparations for Jan. 6.

With other elite Proud Boys members from across the country, they participated in a series of encrypted group chats — known as the “Ministry of Self Defense” — to plan the group’s presence in Washington as thousands of supporters of then-President Donald Trump prepared to descend on the city.

“Gonna be war soon,” one member of the chat posted three days before the attack, prompting another to respond: “Time to stack those bodies in front of Capitol Hill.”

Others wondered: “Are the normies” — an apparent reference to Trump supporters not affiliated with the Proud Boys — “and other attendees going to push through police lines and storm the Capitol building?”

But Healion’s involvement in those discussions was minimal, his lawyer Paul F. Enzinna noted Tuesday, and consisted solely of asking Tarrio what sort of equipment he should bring to Washington to be ready. (Tarrio suggested body armor.)

Prosecutors maintained that advice — as well as the fact that Healion, Rehl, Giddings and traded emergency contacts and blood types before setting out from Philadelphia on Jan. 5 — suggested they came to Washington prepared to engage in violence.

“We’re not just alleging Mr. Healion was a member of the [Proud Boys,]” McWaters said Tuesday. “He was an active member of this group, and he knew what the Proud Boys were trying to do that day.”

Rehl, Healion, Giddings and Vy were among the first crowd of rioters to burst through the security perimeter surrounding the Capitol building and, after storming up toward the buildings Upper West Terrace, paused to snap selfies of themselves making the “OK” hand gesture adopted by Proud Boys and other white power groups.

All around them, rioters were engaged in scuffles with police, some violent.

But as officers struggled to reestablish a security perimeter, Healion broke off from his fellow Proud Boys to join the fracas and grabbed at the bike rack barricades, attempting to wrest them away from police struggling to keep the angry mob at bay. Moments after, Rehl sprayed one cop in the face with what prosecutors have described as some sort of chemical irritant.

Eventually, Healion and Rehl rejoined Giddings and Vy to enter the Capitol building. Security footage showed them carousing with other rioters in the office of U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.) and passing around a joint of marijuana as Rehl smoked a cigarette nearby.

But once the riot was quelled and the magnitude of what had occurred that day began to sink in, Healion texted the Proud Boys’ encrypted group chat.

The immediate widespread condemnation of the riot, he wrote, “shows us that a lot of [people] aren’t ready to go to the next level. He added: “That’s probably a bad thing in the long run” — a remark the judge described Tuesday as “pretty ominous” and as one that gave him pause when it came to sentencing.

Enzinna, however, dismissed that talk as little more than the type of “chest-beating” and “testosterone” talk common among Healion and his Proud Boys brethren.

The defense lawyer reminded Kelly that at the end of the day all his client had actually done was enter the Capitol illegally and briefly grab onto a police bike rack.

“We’ve seen what Mr. Healion did,” Enzinna said. “And frankly, were it not for his association with Proud Boys, we would not be having this discussion.”

In addition to his prison term, Healion was ordered Tuesday to pay $2,000 in restitution and to submit to three years of court supervision upon his release.

©2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC.

Visit at inquirer.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.