A Florida man linked to the far-right Proud Boys who assaulted police officers during the U.S. Capitol attack was sentenced Friday to five years in prison, according to multiple reporters at the federal courthouse in Washington.
Barry Bennet Ramey was seen on video pepper-spraying officers in the face on Jan. 6, 2021, as they tried to hold back the mob encroaching on the inauguration platform that had been constructed beside the Capitol for incoming President Joe Biden.
A judge convicted Ramey on seven counts earlier this year, but spared him felony enhancements.
Prosecutors argued in a sentencing memo that Ramey should spend nine years in prison, claiming he presented “a unique and serious threat to public safety” due to his “history of threats and violence, his ties to the Proud Boys, and his efforts to obstruct this investigation.”
The memo noted that, while Ramey could be expected to show remorse during his sentencing, he expressed none in the months leading up to it.
Ramey’s sentence is one of the harsher ones so far. Rioters who received similar time include Robert Palmer, who threw wooden boards and a fire extinguisher at police, and Richard Barnett, the man armed with a stun gun who was photographed with his feet propped on a desk in the office of then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Elmer Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the anti-government Oath Keepers group, received the longest sentence to date: 18 years, on charges that included seditious conspiracy.
Federal investigators said that Ramey joined up with a group of Proud Boys the morning of the attack dressed in a tactical vest, receiving instructions from leader Ethan Nordean to form a “front line” before continuing slowly and steadily toward the Capitol.
Ramey’s name and phone number were later found on a “master list” of South Florida Proud Boys members, investigators said. The group’s members style themselves as “Western chauvinists” and frequently engage in street brawls against perceived enemies.
In the wake of the attack, Ramey allegedly taunted an FBI agent who sought information about him, reciting the agent’s home address over the phone and texting him a vehicle identification number associated with a vehicle the agent used to own.
Unlike other protesters who later became part of the Capitol mob, none of the Proud Boys who Ramey was with on Jan. 6 attended then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally ahead of the riot, prosecutors said. The group’s focus appeared to be the Capitol, which they circled looking for weakness in the building’s defenses.
One officer hit by the chemical spray, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Bryant Williams, said it felt like “fire on his face.” He said he collapsed soon afterward, according to court documents, and continues to have vision problems.
Ramey himself later denied affiliation with the Proud Boys during questioning by investigators. But prosecutors said the evidence was clear.
“Regardless of whether Ramey was a card-carrying Proud Boy on the morning of January 6, he knew who he was with and he understood the mission,” they said in court documents.
CORRECTION: This story has been amended to clarify that Richard Barnett put his feet on a desk in Nancy Pelosi’s office.