A member of the Proud Boys has disappeared ahead of his sentencing on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to an arrest warrant unsealed on Friday.
Christopher Worrell was convicted earlier this year on seven counts related to his conduct during the insurrection, including assaulting a group of Capitol Police officers with pepper spray and lying to investigators.
He was set to be sentenced on Friday, with prosecutors seeking 14 years in prison. However, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest on Tuesday, and his sentencing hearing was cancelled on Wednesday, court records show.
Why would you release someone convicted of a violent crime pending sentencing? I thought it was standard to keep such a person in detention, and include time served in the calculation of how much more time they need to spend.
Oh wait, people with radically insane right wing politics get a pass, I forgot.
From the government’s perspective? There is often value in releasing the person. They almost never realize their phone lines are tapped and the first thing they do is run to their friends and start incriminating them further.
There is often the issue that these right wing cells are without their knowledge governmental “stay behind” cells who are operating somewhat under the jurisdiction of factions of the US government who are legally barred from operating clandestine missions on US borders.
In terms of the Proud Boys, their leader is a journalist who was officially on the Canadian pay roll before they became a fascist paramilitary leader. Seeing that immigrants who are members of political extremist groups are barred from having permanent residence in the US, while registered spies are not. These are things we have to speculate on, unfortunately.
The US military, CIA, and NSA are all officially forbidden from such operations inside the US, or targeting US citizens. Officially.
It all has to do with evaluating flight risk, with his lawyers asserting a reasonable belief to the judge that he’s not one (prosecutors likewise can make their own recommendations). Bail can be denied, but from what I understand from legal podcasts, most cases have release conditions.
The fact that he skipped town means his lawyer might get in some trouble, but it almost certainly means this guy is royally fucked when they find him. It doesn’t look good to juries when you run away.
Apparently he had an injury that wasn’t being treated. Not saying he deserved to be released, but if our jails weren’t so fucked there’d have never been the appearance of a reason for the court to give him house arrest until sentencing, citing of civil rights abuse.
That said, they’ll find this guy quickly. These days being on the run from the feds when you’re publicly known is really impossible.
