(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A defendant who faces charges stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protest-turned-riot filed a motion Monday that describes how law enforcement infiltrated the Proud Boys in the weeks leading to the event.
Based on a previously unpublicized internal report from the DC Metropolitan Police Department, the court filing from J6 defendant William Pope also alleges that the U.S. government is withholding exculpatory evidence, and that surveillance footage may have been tampered with.
I have filed a motion to compel the government to produce all materials related to undercover police at the Capitol on January 6, and to produce missing police body camera recordings. This motion presents new evidence of illicit behavior by undercover police at the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/RsjXPLSSNn
— 🇺🇸 (@FreeStateWill) August 21, 2023
According to Pope, the investigation report said that MPD officers Nicholas Tomasula, Ricardo Leiva and Michael Callahan infiltrated the Proud Boys at Harry’s Bar in D.C. on December 11, 2020.
“While there, Tomasula and other officers made contacts with many different members of the Proud Boys, and Tomasula and Leiva were invited up to the hotel room of a Proud Boy he had met earlier that week,” Pope said.
“While in the room, Tomasula used police funds to purchase a Proud Boys t-shirt and hoodie, which the department kept for use in potential future undercover operations,” he added.
“Afterwards, Tomasula continued to communicate with Proud Boys using his phone and the Telegram application. The department knew of these contacts, and Detective Callahan even connected Tomasula to the FBI to share information.”
Pope included an excerpt from a Dec. 11, 2020, investigative report from Tomasula, who described seeing Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio with a “handler” during meetings leading up to J6.
“I also observed the leader of the proud boys who goes by the name of ‘Enrique.’ This male seemed to have a security team around him the entire time along with what appeared to be a ‘handler,’ who would direct him and seemed to be organizing things from the background,” Tomasula said in his December 2020 report.
Tomasula apparently took a photo of Tarrio’s handler.
In a follow-up report, the undercover MPD officer described Tarrio as the “figurehead of the Proud Boys,” while saying that his apparent handler is the one who called the shots at the meetings he attended.
“The male subject with the black jacket, under armour [sic] sneakers, and red baseball cap seems to have been the person who called the plays during the weekend,” Tomasula said.
“When Enrique would call for leadership meetings, he and the male in the red hat would always meet.”
However, the photograph of the handler was altered, according to defendant Pope.
“Again, the picture Tomasula included with this intel has been turned black and white and degraded in the PDF produced by the government so it is hard to make out details,” Pope said in his motion Monday.
The photo appears to show an older man with a large nose and glasses wearing a high collared, dark jacket. This is the man characterized by Tomasula as Tarrio’s ‘handler,’” Pope explained, later adding, “This photo is discoverable material, so the government has an obligation to produce the full quality original and any information they have on Tarrio’s ‘handler.’”
The photo of Tarrio’s handler isn’t the only piece of evidence that may have been tampered with. According to Pope, body footage from MPD officers also may have been altered.
For instance, Pope noted “gaps” in the body camera footage of an officer who beat protestors.
“In both cases, between the gaps in recordings, Officer McCallister viciously beats a protestor who is not resisting,” Pope said in his motion.
“It is reasonable to question whether these gaps are anomalies or if evidence is being altered to remove facts that are inconvenient for the government,” he said.
The government is also withholding untold reams of evidence about undercover law enforcement activity on J6, including recordings made by at least 21 officers in the MPD’s electronic surveillance unit.
Pope’s motion seeks to compel the government to produce such evidence.
“As I have shown, the requested discoverable materials are specifically relevant to my case and are also generally relevant to most other January 6 cases. These items should have been voluntarily disclosed by the government long ago,” said Pope, who is representing himself.
“But since the government continues to string me a long with promises of deliverables that never materialize, and since the government is obstructing justice for hundreds of accused Americans (including myself) by withholding these Brady materials, I must move this court to expeditiously compel production.”
A trial date for Pope, whose charges include obstructing an official proceeding and disorderly conduct, has yet to be scheduled.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
