Proud Boys Member Who Helped Prosecution Sentenced in Jan. 6 Attack

A former leader of the Proud Boys who helped the government investigate and prosecute others in the far-right group involved in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced on Tuesday to 40 months in prison for his own role in the assault.

His sentence slightly exceeded the nearly 38 months he has served since his arrest after the riot, meaning he will be released in a little over two months.

The former leader, Charles Donohoe, was the first member of the Proud Boys who cooperated with prosecutors to be sentenced for taking part in the Capitol attack.

While Mr. Donohoe, who once ran a Proud Boys chapter in North Carolina, never testified in public against any of his compatriots, his sentence reflected the value that prosecutors placed on his assistance. His cooperation contributed, among other things, to four members of the organization — including its former chairman, Enrique Tarrio — being convicted of seditious conspiracy this spring.

At a two-hour hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, Mr. Donohoe, a 35-year-old former Marine, expressed regret about the part he played in the storming of the Capitol, saying he knew from the outset that his actions were illegal.

“I’d like to apologize to America as a whole,” he said, adding that his struggles with addiction had clouded his judgment in the lead-up to the riot.

Prosecutors said little about his cooperation deal, focusing instead on his leadership role in the Proud Boys and his contributions to the group’s planning before the riot.

Judge Timothy J. Kelly echoed those concerns, noting that Mr. Donahoe’s involvement in the conspiracy organized by the Proud Boys was a departure from an otherwise civic-minded life, which included military service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“That’s the nature of conspiracies,” Judge Kelly said. “They’re not one-time mistakes — they’re ongoing mistakes over time.”

The Proud Boys were among President Donald J. Trump’s most vocal supporters after his loss in the 2020 election, assuming center stage in a series of so-called Stop the Steal rallies in Washington after Mr. Trump’s defeat.

The group also played a critical role in advancing the violence that erupted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, helping to lead the pro-Trump mob in breaching barricades and assaulting the police.

Mr. Donohoe was on the leadership team of the so-called Ministry of Self-Defense, a group of Proud Boys selected by Mr. Tarrio to be in the vanguard of the Capitol attack. Prosecutors say Mr. Donohoe joined the group’s efforts to push forward toward the building — at one point hauling away a police riot shield that another Proud Boys member, Dominic Pezzola, had wrested from an officer.

Mr. Donohoe also sent messages from the front lines back to other leaders, including “a real-time video report” that some Proud Boys had “stormed the Capitol” just before 1 p.m., prosecutors said.

After the attack, Mr. Donohoe sent other messages celebrating the riot and declaring that the events of the day made him “feel like a complete warrior,” prosecutors said.

Mr. Donohoe was charged in March 2022 along with other leaders of the Proud Boys, including Mr. Tarrio, with joining a conspiracy to obstruct the certification of the election that was taking place inside the Capitol on Jan. 6.

A month later, he pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors — one of several members of the Proud Boys who ultimately turned on their allies.

Internal F.B.I. records show that federal agents made a concerted effort to recruit cooperators during their sprawling investigation of the far-right group. Two former Proud Boys — Matthew Greene and Jeremy Bertino — testified for the government at the sedition trial, telling the jury about the mindset of the organization’s leaders in the run-up to Jan. 6 and about the group’s obsession with physical violence.