According to
Vice News, in the years before his arrest, many of his
Facebook friends reported that he was posting increasingly racist and extremist content, and many of them unfriended him.
January 6 United States Capitol attack Pezzola was a fairly new member of the Proud Boys at the time of the January 6 insurrection. She testified that "He started drinking very heavily and inundated himself with
Fox News day and night." According to prosecutors, during the riot Pezzola "ripped away" an officer's riot shield, and in a "video that has been widely distributed, used it to smash through a window on the exterior of the Capitol building, making him the first rioter to breach the building.
Arrest, arraignment, and pre-trial developments Pezzola was arrested nine days after the attack on the Capitol. They seized a
thumb drive that contained instructions on the manufacture of
homemade firearms, explosives, and poisons. Pezzola unsuccessfully argued in court papers (asking to be released on bond) that he had been duped by
Donald Trump. On February 18, 2021, Pezzola's attorney filed a motion for a modification of Pezzola's bond, which included the statement that Pezzola was considering a guilty plea, saying, "Pezzola has indicated his desire to begin disposition negotiations and acceptance of responsibility for his actions." In March 2021, a federal judge denied Pezzola's attorneys' motion seeking their client's release on bail; Pezzola thus remained detained pending trial. In June 2022, charges of seditious conspiracy were added against Pezzola. Prosecutors said the goal of the conspiracy was "to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force." Pezzola was accused of "encouraging Proud Boys members to attend the January 6 protests, participating in meetings and encrypted conversations in Washington, D.C., to plan the attack, using communications equipment to coordinate the attack as it happened, directing, mobilizing, and leading the crowd onto Capitol grounds and inside the building, dismantling barricades, destroying property and assaulting police." In October 2022, Pezzola was among 33 jailed January 6 defendants who signed a petition asking to be transferred to the
Guantanamo Bay detention camp in
Cuba, claiming that the food and medical care was better there and that prisoners there had more religious freedom.
Trial and conviction The trial for Pezzola and his four co-defendants began on December 19, 2022. Testimony in the trial began on March 2, 2023, and concluded on April 20. Pezzola and Rehl were the only two to take the stand to testify in their own defense. In his testimony, Pezzola first told the jury that he wanted "to take responsibility for my actions on January 6" but later lashed out on cross-examination, downplaying the violence. On May 4, 2023, following a three-month trial and 30 hours of jury deliberation, Pezzola was convicted of multiple charges, including obstruction of a Congressional proceeding, civil disorder, assaulting an officer, robbing an officer and destroying the window. The jury acquitted him of the most serious charge, seditious conspiracy, although his four co-defendants were convicted of that crime. The jury deadlocked on other charges against Pezzola, including conspiring to obstruct the
counting of the electoral votes. less than half of the 20 years that prosecutors had sought. In his tearful plea for leniency to the court, Pezzola said he had given up politics, telling the judge, "Your honor, I stand before you as a changed and humbled man." However, minutes after his sentence was handed down, and U.S. District Judge
Timothy Kelly had left the courtroom, Pezzola, as he was being escorted out of the courtroom by
U.S. Marshals, reversed his earlier stated positions of having given up politics and of having been deceived by Trump. Raising his fist and with a smile, shouted, "Trump won!", repeating
Trump's unfounded claim of election fraud, which had led to the Capitol riot. On January 20, 2025, after beginning his
second term in office, President Trump
commuted Pezzola's sentence. Notably, Pezzola was one of the few individuals charged with crimes related to January 6 to not be granted a full pardon. Pezzola's attorney confirmed that he had been released from prison the following day. ==See also==