A leader of the far-right group Proud Boys asked a judge Monday to release him from his five-month sentence due to the prison’s living conditions.
Henry “Enrique” Tarrio said he’s been harassed by correctional officers and exposed to inhumane jail conditions, including dirty toilet water flooding in from a neighboring cell, abusive guards, and smoke-filled hallways. He asked for his sentence to be either reduced or finished under house arrest to get out of these conditions, according to the Associated Press.
“I’ve been to jail before, and what I’ve seen here, I’ve never seen anywhere else,” Tarrio told the judge by video in jail. “This place needs to be shut down immediately.”
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The Proud Boys member said he witnessed a prisoner who had a seizure lay on the floor for a half-hour before any help arrived. The conditions he lives in and the harassment he faces from correctional officers have left him “deathly afraid that something is going to happen to” him, he said.
Tarrio pleaded guilty to destruction of property and attempted possession of a large-capacity ammunition feeding device, according to the outlet.
Washington’s Superior Court Judge Jonathan Pittman will rule by the end of the week whether Tarrio’s sentence would be reduced to 90 days, the report added.
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The conditions of prisons have been called into question following the arrest of hundreds of people believed to be connected to the Jan. 6 riot. Many of the detainees have been held in solitary confinement, an arrangement that has drawn bipartisan criticism from political figures such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Lindsey Graham.
The District of Columbia Department of Corrections has not responded to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
