The Proud Boys lost big this week when a judge ruled that the group can no longer use its own name and instead awarded the moniker to a Washington DC-based Black church that was subjected to a “hateful and overtly racist” attack by the white supremacists.
On Monday, the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal church — where Fredrick Douglass, Oprah Winfrey, and former President Barack Obama have all worshipped — was awarded power over the Proud Boys name by DC superior court judge Tanya Jones Bosier, who opened the door for the church to seize any profit made from the sale of merchandise sales using the far-right extremist group’s name, logos, and insignia, The Guardian reports.
The Proud Boys were initially ordered to pay the church $2.8 million in 2023 after several members scaled a wall and vandalized the church, including burning a Black Lives Matter banner during a December 2020 rally put on by people who falsely claimed that the election was stolen from Donald Trump after he lost to Joe Biden.
Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio and fellow members John Turano, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Jeremy Bertino lost the civil suit after DC superior court judge Neal Kravitz said that when they attacked the church, they had “acted with an evil, discriminatory motive based on race and that their conduct was reprehensible to an extreme degree.”
Tarrio was also one of the planners of the January 6 insurrection at the Capital and was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy, but was recently pardoned and released from prison by Trump.
Although he was one of the main organizers of the Capital riot, he was not part of the insurrection and instead helped to plan it from a hotel room in Baltimore. He had already been arrested for stealing a BLM flag when the Proud Boys attacked the Ashbury Methodist church, part of a series of crimes that saw the white supremacist group target four churches in a single night.
To satisfy the more than $2 million judgment, which the Proud Boys have yet to pay, the group will have to seek permission from the church in order to use its own name or logos (including their recognizable yellow laurel leaf design) for any revenue-creating venture. In the lawsuit, lawyers for the church say the Proud Boys have “engaged in fraudulent activity to prevent the church from collecting the judgment,” which includes “terminating the Proud Boys entity and surrendering its trademark registration.”
Tarrio has not remained quiet after being pardoned, instead, he has called for the church to have its nonprofit status revoked and the impeachment of Bosier, who was appointed by Biden.
“Their actions are a betrayal of justice,” Tarrio said of Bosier and Kravitz, the two judges involved in the case.
“I hold in contempt any motions, judgments and orders issued against me.”