OAN’s Geraldyn Berry
2:47 PM –Friday, May 19, 2023
A Metropolitan Police Department lieutenant who oversaw the Washington, D.C., police’s intelligence division is accused of obstruction of justice, making false statements, as well as informing former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio of an impending arrest warrant.
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In a press release, the Department of Justice announced that 47-year-old Shane Lamond was arraigned before United States Magistrate Judge Zia on Friday. A federal grand jury charged the lieutenant with obstructing the investigation into the burning of the banner on December 12, 2020, when the Proud Boys were on the streets of Washington for a pro-Trump event. Officials also claimed that he leaked information to Tarrio while on a flight from Miami to the Washington area on January 4, 2021, saying that law enforcement had an arrest warrant for him related to the banner incident.
Between July 2019 and January 2021, Tarrio and Lamond had communicated “at least 500 times using cloud-based messaging services, including Google Voice, Apple iMessage, and Telegram, an encrypted messaging application,” the indictment said. The duo allegedly sent approximately 145 messages using a secret chat function on Telegram that causes messages to disappear, adding that “at least 101 of these messages were destroyed.”
“Of course I can’t say it officially, but personally I support you all and don’t want to see your group’s name or reputation dragged through the mud,” he said in that message.
In a similar correspondence, Lamond allegedly informed the official with the Capitol Police that if they charged Tarrio with a hate crime, they would also need to file what he dubbed “Antifa hate crimes.”
Tarrio, the former Proud Boys chair, and other Patriotic Men’s drinking club members were recently convicted of seditious conspiracy.
The leader had not been in Washington on January 6 because he had been ordered by a judge to leave the city the day before the breach after being arrested in connection with the alleged burning of a Black Lives Matter flag and making false and misleading statements to law enforcement about doing so.
If found guilty on all charges, Lamond could spend more than 30 years behind bars.
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