The Proud Boys is barred from promoting merchandise utilizing its title or symbols with out permission from a Black church as soon as vandalized by the right-wing extremist group’s members, after a Washington, D.C., decide on Monday revoked its management over the trademark.
Choose Tanya Jones Bosier of the Superior Courtroom of the District of Columbia turned management of the “Proud Boys” trademark over to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, which was attacked by members of the group, together with former chief Enrique Tarrio, after a December 2020 rally supporting President Trump.
The church beforehand received a $2.8 million default judgment in opposition to the Proud Boys in 2023 however sought management of the group’s trademarked title when it didn’t pay up.
Now, the church can try and seize any cash the Proud Boys makes by way of “any sale, transfer, disposition, or license” of the group’s title or signature logos, together with a black and yellow laurel wreath, in accordance with the order.
In a prolonged assertion printed to the social platform X, Tarrio referred to as for the decide’s impeachment and recommended the church must be audited, asserting “retribution is inevitable.”
“Their actions are a betrayal of justice, reminiscent of Judas’s treachery,” Tarrio mentioned. “I hold in contempt any motions, judgments, and orders issued against me.”
The vandalization of the church — particularly the destruction of a Black Lives Matter banner it had on show — proved pivotal. Tarrio was arrested for burning the banner days earlier than Jan. 6, 2021, and was ordered out of the town, stopping him from becoming a member of different Proud Boys on the Capitol that day.
The violence between Proud Boys and anti-Trump protesters on Dec. 12, 2020, the evening the church was attacked, additionally marked a turning level within the right-wing group’s relationship with police. Prosecutors described that evening as a essential precursor to the Capitol assault.
Tarrio, who was convicted of sedition and sentenced to 22 years in jail over Jan. 6, acquired a full and unconditional pardon from Trump final month as a part of the sweeping clemency he granted to these charged in reference to the riot. Different leaders within the group noticed their sentences for sedition or completely different severe felonies commuted to time served.
