Founder of Proud Boys’ Hawaii chapter, another rioter receive 4-year sentences for Jan. 6 attack

The founder of the Hawaii chapter of the far-right white nationalist group the Proud Boys and another person who rioted at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection were sentenced to four years in prison on Friday for their involvement in the attack. 

Nicholas Ochs, a 36-year-old from Honolulu who founded the Hawaii chapter, and Nicholas DeCarlo, a 32-year-old from Fort Worth, Texas, each pleaded guilty in September to obstruction of an official proceeding. They were sentenced on Friday to 48 months in prison, followed by 36 months of supervised release, according to a Justice Department (DOJ) release. 

The release states that Ochs, who was responsible for approving new chapters within the Proud Boys, traveled from Honolulu to Washington, D.C., on the day before the insurrection and stayed with DeCarlo at a hotel in Virginia. 

Both men attended former President Trump’s rally at the Ellipse that preceded the riot and then went to the Capitol to join others who were illegally on the grounds, according to the DOJ. The department said both threw smoke bombs at a line of police trying to keep the rioters from the stage that had been set for President Biden’s inauguration. 

They climbed the stairs to the Capitol’s Upper West Terrace and illegally entered the Capitol through the Senate Wing Doors, the department said, staying in the building for about 40 minutes.

DeCarlo wrote “Murder the Media,” the name of the men’s social media channel, on a door to the Capitol and Ochs recorded him doing so, according to the DOJ. 

They also went through a U.S. Capitol Police duffle bag, and DeCarlo took a pair of plastic hand cuffs, the department said.

In addition to the prison sentences, Ochs was fined $5,000 while DeCarlo was fined $2,500, and both were ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution and a $100 special assessment. 

The DOJ release states that about 900 individuals in almost all 50 states have been arrested for crimes related to the storming of the Capitol, including more than 280 people who were charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. 

Ochs’s sentence comes as the leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tario, and other members are set to go on trial later this month for seditious conspiracy and other crimes related to their actions surrounding the insurrection.