Nicholas Ochs, the founder of Hawaiʻi's Proud Boys chapter, has been sentenced to four years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the U.S. Capitol.
Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled in federal court on Friday that Ochs will serve four years in prison, three years of supervised release and have to pay $7,100 in additional fines.
Several other offenders were charged, including Nicholas DeCarlo, who posted photos on social media alongside Ochs on Jan. 6, and Ronald Sandlin, who assaulted Capitol police officers.
Ochs, 36, is the founder of the Hawaiʻi chapter of Proud Boys, an international organization of right-wing men. He and DeCarlo caught public attention when they were among those to physically enter the Capitol, filming videos of themselves to post on social media.
Ed MacMahon, Ochs' attorney, said in court papers that his client, “regrets and is deeply embarrassed by his juvenile behavior exhibited at the Capitol.”
MacMahon called the ruling a “long prison sentence for somebody that didn’t commit a single act of violence.”
The men admitted to throwing smoke bombs at a line of police trying to keep the mob from the stage set up for Biden's inauguration.
Ochs was arrested in Honolulu the day after the Jan. 6 insurrection. Since then, he has been charged on counts of conspiracy, destruction and theft of government property, aiding and abetting, obstruction of an official proceeding and entering restricted grounds.
In September, Ochs pleaded guilty in federal court to a felony charge for the indictment and obstruction of an official proceeding.
The Department of Justice reported more than 900 individualswere arrested in almost every state for crimes related to the insurrection.
Ochs was a journalism major and political science minor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Ochs was the Republican Party’s candidate to represent Waikīkī in the Hawaiʻi House in the November 2020 election. Ochs lost to Democrat Adrian Tam.
