D.C. police lieutenant charged with leaking information to the leader of Proud Boys

Federal prosecutors on Friday opened charges against a veteran Washington police officer, accusing him of obstructing justice by leaking law enforcement information to Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys.

Prosecutors say the officer, Shane Lamond, 47, told Mr. Tarrio said he would not be charged with hate crimes after a group of Proud Boys under his command burned a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Washington black church following a pro-Trump rally in the city in December 2020. The episode took place weeks before the far-right group played a central role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Mr Lamond, who worked as an intelligence expert for the Metropolitan Police Department, was suspended as the investigation into his ties to Mr Tarrio progressed. He also gave Mr. Tarrio advance notice that he would be arrested in connection with the banner-burning episode in early January 2021 when he returned to Washington for the events of January 6.

Mark E. Schamel, a lawyer for Mr. Lamond, declined to comment on the allegations.

Prosecutors began investigating Mr. Lamond and Mr. Tarrio’s relationship after the U.S. Capitol bombing, when a group of about 200 Proud Boys helped lead a pro-Trump mob in breaching barricades and ultimately disrupting congressional certification. of the 2020 election results.

Mr Tarrio and three of his lieutenants were convicted this month of seditious conspiracy in connection with the attack.

According to a charge filed against Mr. Lamond in Federal District Court in Washington, Mr. Tarrio provided him with information regarding the Proud Boys’ plans to descend on Washington on January 6. In a text message to Mr. Lamond on December 19, 2020 – the same day President Donald J. Trump posted a tweet calling on his followers to come to town for what he called a “wild” protest. Mr Tarrio said the Proud Boys’ participation in the January 6 event would be “extremely small” and that members of the group would not be wearing their traditional black and yellow uniforms.

The two men had been in contact since July 2019 and corresponded regularly after the 2020 election, with Mr Tarrio often briefing on plans to take his group to rallies in support of Mr Trump. Mr Lamond “regularly beat sensitive law enforcement information in return,” the indictment said, including guidance on their movements and those of anti-Trump protesters in Washington.

The exchanges, often via coded messages, suggest the extent to which Mr. Tarrio and other Proud Boys leaders maintained relationships with members of law enforcement, particularly in cities where they were planning rallies.

Even after Jan. 6, Mr. Tarrio and Mr. Lamond continued to communicate about the legal ramifications of the riot, exchanging responses to the violence and exchanging information about the larger investigation. Texts in the indictment show that Mr. Tarrio, who had also passed information to the FBI and Florida police officers in the past, maintained a similarly close and cooperative relationship with Mr. Lamond seemed to have maintained.

“I think I could have stopped this whole thing,” Mr. Tarrio on January 7, before offering to help police arrest someone in connection with the riot.

“Let me know if she’s on your list,” Mr. Tarrio wrote. “I’ll have her turn herself in.”

“Looks like the FBI is incarcerating people for rioting at the Capitol,” Mr. Lamond texted back on Jan. 8. “I hope none of your men were there.”

In addition to obstructing the investigation of Mr. Tarrio, Mr. Lamond had deliberately misrepresented investigators, prosecutors said. Mr. Lamond described the exchanges as “one-sided” and routine intelligence-gathering, while he had frequently contacted Mr. Tarrio with privileged details of Metropolitan Police Department activities.

Lawyers for Mr. Tarrio attempted to call Mr. Lamond as a defense witness at the sedition trial, but Mr. Schamel told them that if Mr. Lamond were called to testify, he would be invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Mr. Tarrio’s legal team then tried to get Judge Timothy J. Kelly to grant immunity to Mr. Lamond and force him to take a stand, but the judge refused to do so.

Unable to obtain Mr Lamond’s live testimony, Mr Tarrio’s lawyers opted to enter several text messages the two men exchanged in an effort to show that they were in close contact, not only in the run-up to January 6. as well as other pro-Trump events in Washington that preceded it.

The lawyers hoped to convince the jury that Mr. Tarrio could not plot an incendiary plot against the government while actively keeping an experienced police officer abreast of the Proud Boys’ activities.

“I am shocked and disgusted to see that the government has used certain information in the indictment against Lieutenant Shane Lamond that was not allowed to be introduced into our trial,” said Nayib Hassan, a lawyer for Mr. Tarrio.