WASHINGTON, DC- The Associated Press reports that Shane Lamond, a retired lieutenant from the DC Metropolitan Police Department, has been sentenced to serve 18 months in prison for allegedly lying to authorities about leaking confidential information to Enrique Tarrio, the former national chairman of the Proud Boys.
Lamond was accused of leaking information about the agency’s investigation into the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner to Tarrio, who was under investigation in connection with the case.
In a trial before U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C., last December, Lamond was convicted of one count of obstructing justice and three counts of making a false statement.
Tarrio, who attended Lamond’s sentencing, has asked President Donald Trump to pardon the former police lieutenant.
“I ask that the Justice Department and the President of the United States step in and correct the injustice that I just witnessed inside this courtroom,” Tarrio said outside the courthouse after the sentencing.
Jackson, it should be noted, an appointee of Barack Obama, is infamous for issuing harsh sentences to conservatives, including a 40-month sentence for Trump confidante Roger Stone, and a 43-month consecutive sentence for former Trump campaign consultant Paul Manafort. Trump issued both men full pardons at the end of his first term.
In the case of Lamond, prosecutors had recommended a four-year sentence.
“Because Lamond knew what he did was wrong, he lied to cover it up–not just to the Federal Agents who questioned his actions, but to this Court,” they wrote. “This is an egregious obstruction of justice and a betrayal of the work of his colleagues at MPD.”
Conversely, Lamond’s attorneys argued for no prison time.
“Mr. Lamond gained nothing from his communications with Mr. Tarrio and only sought, albeit in a sloppy and ineffective way, to gain information and intelligence that would help stop the violent protesters coming to D.C. in late 2020, early 2021,” they wrote.
Tarrio was arrested for burning a BLM banner stolen from a Black church in downtown DC in December 2020, and later pleaded guilty. He was arrested two days before dozens of Proud Boys members converged on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Despite being nowhere near the Capitol that day, Tarrio was convicted by a jury of orchestrating a plot to help President Trump remain in the White House after the election didn’t go his way.
At his bench trial, Lamond testified that he did not provide Tarrio with sensitive police information. Likewise, Tarrio, who testified on Lamond’s behalf, said he did not confess to Lamond about burning the banner, nor did he receive any confidential information from him.
Berman Jackson, however didn’t find either man’s testimony to be credible, noting that Lamond didn’t use Tarrio as a source after the Dec. 12, 2020, banner burning, but “it was the other way around.”
Lamond retired in May 2023 after 23 years of service with the Metro police.
Lamond met Tarrio in 2019 and was responsible for monitoring groups such as the Proud Boys as part of his duties as supervisor of the intelligence branch of the department’s Homeland Security Bureau.
Prosecutors claimed that Lamond tipped off Tarrio that a warrant for his arrest had been signed. They noted messages that suggested Lamond provided Tarrio with real-time updates on the department’s investigation.
