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U.S. Capitol rioter tells judge “you could give me 100 years and I would still do it all over again”
A Proud Boys member who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced to six years in prison on Wednesday after he told the judge “you could give me 100 years.”
Marc Bru, 44, was found guilty in October of two felonies, including obstruction of an official proceeding and civil disorder, and five misdemeanor charges. The judge said Bru showed no signs of remorse, CBS affiliate WUSA reported.
“You could give me 100 years and I would still do it all over again,” the defendant said defiantly in court.
Prosecutors had asked for Bru to be sentenced to more than seven years behind bars. They said he was “amongst the least remorseful January 6 defendants.”
On the day of the Jan. 6 riot, Bru was one of the first people to breach the restricted perimeter on the west side of the Capitol grounds, according to the Department of Justice. He spent hours harassing U.S. Capitol police officers. During the riot, officers tried to use bicycle rack barricades to push rioters back. Bru charged, grabbed a barricade and used his body weight to stop police from moving it forward. He later entered the Capitol building, taking several selfies inside.
Around six weeks later, Bru attempted to organize what officials described as a violent insurrection in Portland, Oregon.
“He wanted a repeat of January 6, only he implied this time would be more violent,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing ahead of his sentencing.
The FBI arrested Bru on March 30, 2021. He was given pretrial release, but was then arrested twice more on charges of driving under the influence. Those cases remain pending after Bru failed to appear for scheduled court appearances.
He also skipped a scheduled June 26 pretrial conference for his federal charges, authorities said. Several days later, he posted to social media. “If they want me they will come get me. I’m drawing a f— line in the sand,” Bru posted, according to officials
In addition to his prison sentence, Bru was issued a fine of $7,946 and told to pay $2,000 in restitution.
“Marc Bru of Washington was sentenced to six years today for rioting against democracy at the Capitol on Jan. 6,” Gov. Jay Inslee posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday. “Trump pledged, if president, he would pardon people like this man. Bru said he’d do it all over if he had the chance. No one should be allowed to do this ever again.”
So far, more than 1,265 individuals have been charged for crimes related to the attack against the Capitol.
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Trump seeks to overturn criminal conviction, citing Supreme Court immunity decision
Donald Trump is trying to leverage a Supreme Court decision holding that presidents are immune from federal prosecution for official actions to overturn his conviction in a New York State criminal case.
A letter to the judge presiding over the New York case is not yet public. It was filed Monday after the Supreme Court’s landmark holding further slowed the former president’s criminal cases.
A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg declined to comment when asked about Trump’s effort to overturn the conviction, which was first reported by The New York Times.
Trump’s criminal case in New York is the only one of four against him to go to trial. On May 30, a unanimous jury concluded Trump was guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in an effort to cover up reimbursements for a “hush money” payment to an adult film star. Trump signed off on falsifying the records while he was in the White House in 2017.
Monday’s Supreme Court decision extended broad immunity from criminal prosecutions to former presidents for their official conduct. But the issue of whether Trump was engaged in official acts has already been litigated in his New York case.
Trump sought in 2023 to move the case from state to federal jurisdiction. His lawyers argued that the allegations involved official acts within the color of his presidential duties.
That argument was rejected by a federal judge who wrote that Trump failed to show that his conduct was “for or relating to any act performed by or for the President under color of the official acts of a president.”
“The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was purely a personal item of the president — a cover-up of an embarrassing event,” U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein wrote. “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the president’s official duties.”
Trump initially appealed that decision, but later dropped it.
His case went to trial in April, and soon after the jury’s unanimous decision finding him guilty, Trump vowed to appeal the conviction.
Trump is scheduled to be sentenced July 11. Prosecutors were expected to file a sentencing recommendation Monday. That filing has not been made public.