Ex-police officer convicted of leaking information to Proud Boys leader ahead of J6 riot
Former Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Lt. Shane Lamond has been found guilty on all counts after being accused of working with Proud Boys' leader Enrique Tarrio leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Federal district court Judge Amy Berman Jackson reviewed hundreds of messages between Lamond and Tarrio for the bench trial, NBC News reported Monday.
She found Lamond engaged in "entirely unauthorized" back-channeling that was "entirely contradictory" to the interest of police.
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Tarrio was part of the trial, giving, at times, contentious testimony, according to NBC News. Among his claims was that he lied to his fellow Proud Boys when he claimed he had inside info from a Washington, D.C. police officer.
“I can’t tell you I wanted to go to D.C. to get arrested; that sounds weird,” Tarrio testified, saying that he wanted to go to Washington ahead of Jan. 6. His hope in traveling early was to "get this over with” and to set up a “circus tent” while using his arrest as a “marketing ploy.”
"Prosecutors argued during the trial that Lamond had become a 'double agent' for the Proud Boys, saying he had tipped off Tarrio that there was a warrant out for his arrest in connection with the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner during Tarrio's prior trip to Washington with the Proud Boys," said the report.
Lamond attempted to twist the relationship around, saying he was cultivating Tarrio as a source to give information to the police. However, Judge Jackson said in the verdict that the text messages between the two men had shared goals.
"All of this is just noise — rhetorical icing on the government's case," said Jackson.
Lamond was suspended from the police department in February 2022. At the time, Police Chief Robert Contee III said only that a department member had been placed on administrative leave during an "ongoing investigation" conducted by his department, the FBI, and the Department of Justice.