A Proud Boys member who federal prosecutors said played a significant role in the breach of the Capitol on January 6 pleaded guilty Wednesday to felony conspiracy and obstruction charges.
Matthew Greene of Syracuse, N.Y. admitted to plotting with other members of the far right group to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Greene, a Army National Guard veteran, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors as part of his plea.
He is the first member of the extremist group, which describes itself as a pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world, to plead guilty and cooperate in a Jan. 6 related case.
In court filings, prosecutors said Greene joined the Central New York Proud Boys chapter in December 2020, and that he and other members planned and coordinated their activities for and on January 6 ahead of time, including with programmable radios.
The group met at the Washington Monument and then marched together to the Capitol complex, where Greene was one of the first people to have traversed past toppled police barricades, prosecutors said.
He was at the front of the line of rioters when police started using crowd-control measures, which included pepper spray, court filings say, but he appears to have retreated and never made it into the Capitol building itself.
He later boasted about his actions using encrypted messaging apps, including telling one acquaintance, we took the capital, according to the filings. He told another Proud Boys member in the days after the attack that they needed to be prepared to do uncomfortable things. A search of his home in January turned up four unregistered guns, including an AR-15, according to court documents.
Greene is scheduled to be sentenced on March 10. He's likely to face over four years in prison under the federal sentencing guidelines, but prosecutors could ask for less time based on his level of cooperation.
More than three dozen people charged with conspiracy have been identified by the federal authorities as Proud Boys leaders, members or associates, including at least 16 defendants charged with conspiracy.