The Cuban Zuny Duarte, mother of Enrique Tarrío, who has just been sentenced to 22 years in prison for leading from a distance the assault on the United States Capitol in January 2021, called the sentence "excessive."
Zuny gave a press conference in which he expressed that his son, former leader of the extremist group Proud Boys, was subjected to an "unfair process" and that the government has used him as a "political pawn."
"Twenty-two years is excessive, more than excessive. We have murders, rapes, child pornography, with much less conviction," he said.
The woman assured that Tarrío is being used as a political person, since he was not even present at the riots caused by Trump's followers at the headquarters of the US Congress.
"Many people say: 'well, how is it possible that they sentence a person who was not there to 22 years'? Simply because it is being used politically," he said.
Tarrío's mother added that he has always been a good person, involved in politics in the best way, always with law enforcement.
"Of course, we're going to take it to appeals. There were a lot of things that are going to come out in the appeals," he announced, before revealing that his family has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their son's legal defense.
"It has been catastrophic," he stressed.
Last Tuesday, a federal court in Washington sentenced Cuban-American Enrique Tarrío to 22 years in prison for leading a plot to prevent the transition of power after the 2020 presidential elections, which led to the assault on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump.
Tarrío, 39 years old and resident of Miami, has received the most severe sanction of those that have been imposed on participants in the riots.
Judge Timothy Kelly, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, argued that severe punishment was necessary to deter future political violence.
The Cuban-American was convicted last May of seditious conspiracy and other crimes, in a trial that included four other members of the Proud Boys, for orchestrating a plot to obstruct the peaceful transfer of presidential power.
The jury also found three of the extremist group's lieutenants guilty of the same charges: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl, sentenced to terms of 18, 17 and 15 years in prison, respectively.
In August, the United States Department of Justice requested a sentence of 33 years in prison for Tarrío, pointing to him as the ringleader of the plot that sought to annul Joe Biden's electoral victory.
Enrique Tarrío was born in Miami in 1984, into a family from Matanzas that emigrated to the United States.
Before joining the Proud Boys, he had a criminal record: in 2014, a federal court sentenced him to 30 months for involvement in a scheme to resell stolen medical devices, and in 2003, he received a probation sentence for the theft of a motorcycle.
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