Zuny Duarte, the mother of former Proud Boys frontman Enrique Tarrio, recently sentenced to 22 years in prison for his remote involvement in the Jan. 6 incidents, defended her son's innocence Thursday at a news conference in Miami Lakes.
"Twenty-two years of sentencing seems, like, extremely excessive," said his mother, who was speaking alongside her son's defense lawyer, Najib Hassana.
Duarte, 39, accused the justice system and the government of using her son as a political pawn.
"Enrique Tarrio is being used as a political example. He wasn't even there and I want to make that clear because a lot of people say, 'How is it possible that they sentence a person who wasn't there to 22 years?'" said the former Proud Boys frontman's mother. "Simply because he is being used politically".
On Tuesday, a federal judge sentenced Tarrio to 22 years in prison following his conviction in May on "seditious conspiracy" charges related to the Capitol riots. This is the longest prison sentence imposed on any defendant involved in the January 6th events.
Critics of Tarrio's sentencing say the former Proud Boys leader was not in Washington, D.C., that day, however; prosecutors argue that the defendant was leading the protest from a distance which resulted in hundreds of people storming the Capitol.
"We have to review this. Of course, we will take it to appeals" said Tarrio's mother. "This has brought a lot of pain to our family. And not just for ours, but for many American families. And it has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. At least for our family it has been catastrophic."
Then the mother asked for donations to be made to tarriofamilyfund.org. The money raised will be used to fund Tarrio's defense. The fund aims to raise $100,000 for Tarrio's legal fees and has already surpassed $20,000.
After the announcement, Zuny Duarte told reporters that never before had her family come forward to the media to ask for donations because they fully trusted the justice system. However, after her son's "excessive" sentencing, Duarte said that the "system failed us."
"At this moment we need the help of the community, our congressmen and all politicians," insisted Duarte, who later said she never imagined being in front of the cameras having to explain the pain of her son's conviction and the dangerous path she says America is following as a nation.
According to Duarte, her son is being used as "a pawn" in the system, which is using him as a scapegoat for the entire criminal process related to the Capitol incidents of January 6, 2021.
During the conference, Tarrio's mother was asked about her son's apology for the January 6 events and whether it represented an embarrassment for her family. She replied that, despite her son's words, she is "proud" of Tarrio and said there was "no disappointment" for the family.
"All he's done is tried to make the dream we all have of having free expression ... He apologized because he believes that there were things that were badly done, not precisely because of him, but in general we can not let see what happened on January 6. I think his position was to apologize, both to the police and everything that happened," the mother continued.
"That is a suffering for anyone who has love for their country. It's okay to apologize. And to answer his question, the 22 years, I go back and repeat, is because he is a political pawn (...) It is a way of silencing us and that cannot continue to happen," she said.
