A D.C. Superior Court judge on Friday ordered Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio to appear in court, after a federal agency that monitors defendants on pretrial release reported Tarrio as a “loss of contact.”
The 33-year-old Tarrio, who lives in Miami, was arrested in the District last month and charged with destruction of property for the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner outside a D.C. church in December. In addition to the misdemeanor, Tarrio also faces felony counts of possessing two extended, empty rifle magazines, each capable of holding 30 rounds of .223-caliber, AR-15-compatible ammunition. Tarrio told authorities he planned to sell the magazines.
As part of his release, a judge ordered Tarrio to report to the agency regularly. But in a Feb. 4 memo to the judge, the agency wrote that Tarrio had failed to report by phone, has not verified his address and was deemed a loss of contact, according to the filing.
In a telephone interview with The Washington Post the day Pretrial Services filed its memo, Tarrio said he had tried “repeatedly” to call the agency but did not have any success. “They don’t make it easy to reach them. I will call them right now,” he said.
Tarrio is a key figure in the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence. Canada recently designated it a terrorist group. The Proud Boys has supported former president Donald Trump’s false claims that he won the November election, and the banner was burned during a pro-Trump demonstration Dec. 12.
Tarrio was released from custody Jan. 5 as he awaited trial, with a requirement that he abide by the monitoring agency’s conditions. He also was barred from returning to the nation’s capital for anything other than court business while his case is pending.