A former police officer with the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) was found guilty of leaking information to a former Proud Boys leader.
United States District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson found Shane Lamond, the former head of the MPD’s intelligence unit, guilty of one count of obstructing justice and three counts of having lied to “federal law enforcement officials,” according to the Hill.
Lamond was previously charged with alerting former Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio about a “warrant out for his arrest” prior to the January 6, 2021, riot at the United States Capitol.
The Hill noted that Lamond had reportedly “lied and said that he did not tip off” the former Proud Boys leader regarding a “warrant out for his arrest.”
“As proven at trial, Lamond turned his job on its head — providing confidential information to a source, rather than getting information from him — lied about the conduct, and obstructed an investigation into the source,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves said, according to the outlet.
While serving as the head of the “Intelligence Branch of the MPD’s Homeland Security Bureau,” Lamond started “maintaining regular communication with Tario in July 2019”:
Lamond was the supervisor of the Intelligence Branch of the MPD’s Homeland Security Bureau at the time. He began maintaining regular communication with Tarrio in July 2019, as part of what prosecutors said were his job responsibilities.
During a “bench trial,” Tarrio reportedly revealed that he had “been contemporaneously lying to his fellow Proud Boys about” having a source in the MPD feeding him information, according to the Guardian.
The Guardian reported that during Lamond’s trial, the defense had argued that Lamond communicating with Tarrio was “a part of his job,” while prosecutors “showed that Lamond wrote of his affinity for the Proud Boys” and expressed that he “supported” the Proud Boys:
Lamond’s defense said that their client’s communications with Tarrio were a part of his job. But prosecutors showed that Lamond wrote of his affinity for the Proud Boys. In those communications, Lamond said he supported the group and did not “want to see your group’s name or reputation dragged through the mud”, an indictment alleged.
As Breitbart News previously reported, in September 2023, Tarrio received a 22-year prison sentence over the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, though Tarrio “was not in Washington, D.C.” that day, due to him being arrested two days prior for allegedly defacing a Black Lives Matter banner”:
The 39-year-old was not in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, due to his arrest in the city two days prior for allegedly defacing a Black Lives Matter banner. After his arrest, a judge ordered him to leave the nation’s capital, so Tarrio spent the majority of January 6, 2021, at a Baltimore hotel.
However, prosecutors said Tarrio’s absense from the city on that day “does nothing to detract from the severity of his conduct,” because he “was a general rather than a soldier.”
Lamond is scheduled to be sentenced on April 3, 2025.