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The Proud Boys have lost control of their own name after the far-right extremist group subjected a Black church in Washington DC to a “hateful and overtly racist” attack during the violent final days of Donald Trump’s first presidency.
The ruling Monday by Judge Tanya Jones Bosier of Washington DC’s superior court grants the church – the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal church – power over how the Proud Boys moniker is used. Bosier’s decision opens a pathway to seizing proceeds from the sale of any merchandise featuring the white supremacist group’s name, logos and insignia, too.
Lawyers for the church sought the ruling to satisfy a $2.8m judgment stemming from the December 2020 attack during a rally by Trump supporters who falsely claimed that victory was stolen from him when he lost the presidential election that year to Joe Biden.
Several Proud Boys members scaled a wall at the church and embarked on a rampage of vandalism that included burning a Black Lives Matter (BLM) banner.
The mob included Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, a planner of the 6 January 2021 Capitol attack who was subsequently sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy. But he was among 1,500 people pardoned and freed when Trump returned to office in January after defeating Kamala Harris in November’s election.
In a June 2023 ruling, DC superior court judge Neal Kravitz said Tarrio and fellow Proud Boys members John Turano, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Jeremy Bertino had “acted with an evil, discriminatory motive based on race and that their conduct was reprehensible to an extreme degree” when they attacked the church.
It was one of a number of violent incidents that took place in the Washington DC area between Trump’s defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and the deadly January 6 attack by his supporters trying to keep him in office.
Tarrio did not take part in the Capitol insurrection because he had been arrested for stealing a BLM flag in an separate assault on the Asbury United Methodist church, one of four churches attacked by the Proud Boys on the same night. He watched the riot he had helped organize from a hotel room in Baltimore.
Since being freed from prison, he has called for revenge on those who prosecuted and jailed him. “The people who did this, they need to feel the heat, they need to be put behind bars, and they need to be prosecuted,” he said in January.
Bosier’s ruling on Monday recognized a lawsuit filed last year by the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison law firm and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, on behalf of the church that asserted the far-right militia had not paid up.
The group “engaged in fraudulent activity to prevent the church from collecting the judgment”, the lawsuit stated, “including terminating the Proud Boys entity and surrendering its trademark registration”.
The group must seek permission from the church before it can use its name or traditional symbols for any revenue-creating venture, according to Bosier’s ruling, which was reported by the New York Times. Proud Boys usually dress in black polo shirts with a yellow laurel leaf as their logo.
In a lengthy statement reported by the Times, Tarrio said the church should have its non-profit status revoked and called for the impeachment of Bosier, who was appointed to the DC superior court bench by Joe Biden.
“Their actions are a betrayal of justice,” Tarrio said, referring to judges Bosier and Kravitz.
“I hold in contempt any motions, judgments and orders issued against me.”
It is not clear how or if the church intends to wield its new power over Proud Boys’ operations. The Guardian has contacted church officials and their lawyers for comment.
