Proud Boys Ethan Nordean and Dominic Pezzola Bagged 18 years imprisonment for US Capitol riot

Two members of the far-right Proud Boys group have been jailed for leading the US Capitol riot.

Dominic Pezzola, 46, who was convicted of assaulting police and obstructing an official proceeding, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Ethan Nordean, 32, who led the group's march on Congress on 6 January 2021, was sentenced to 18 years for a more serious seditious conspiracy charge.

The former head of the group, Enrique Tarrio, will be sentenced next week.

Before being sentenced, Nordean told the court: "I would like to apologise for my lack of leadership that day" and called the riot "a complete and utter tragedy".

"To anyone who I directly or even indirectly wronged, I'm sorry," he said.

But US District Judge Timothy Kelly told him that the events of the day broke a long political tradition.

"If we don't have a peaceful transfer of power in this country, we don't have anything," Mr Kelly said.

Nordean, of Washington state, went by the nickname "Rufio Panman" and was well-known within the Proud Boys for his frequent brawls with antifa activists in the Pacific Northwest.

His sentence is one of the longest ones yet handed to Capitol riot defendants. Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, was also given 18 years in prison earlier this year.

The other defendant sentenced on Friday, Pezzola, a 46-year-old former US Marine, fought with officers during the riot and smashed a window with a police riot shield.

A selfie video taken on the day of the riot shows Pezzola smoking what he described as a "victory cigar" in the Capitol building.