A Proud Boys leader was nominated to carry out "war powers" intended to stop the certification of President Joe Biden's election win, according to federal prosecutors.
U.S. prosecutors asked a federal judge to keep Ethan Nordean, the right-wing organization's Washington state leader, in jail until his trial, alleging in a 24-page court filing that the 30-year-old Proud Boy led a plot to split into groups to break into the U.S. Capitol from as many points as possible, reported the Washington Post.
"By blending in and spreading out, Defendant and those following him on January 6 made it more likely that either a Proud Boy — or a suitably-inspired 'normie' [nonmilitant Trump supporter] — would be able to storm the Capitol and its ground in such a way that would interrupt [Congress's] Certification of the Electoral College vote," prosecutors alleged in the filing.
Prosecutors said Nordean was nominated from within to lead the plot after group chairman Henry "Enrique" Tarrio was arrested two days earlier by Washington, D.C., police in connection with a church's Black Lives Matter banner during a previous Proud Boys demonstration.
Nordean, who goes by Rufio Panman online, was arrested Feb. 3 on charges of aiding and abetting the destruction of government property, obstructing an official proceeding, trespassing and disorderly conduct on restricted Capitol grounds.
A federal magistrate granted Nordean's release on Feb. 8, but he remains jailed while prosecutors appeal the ruling.