Who is Joe Biggs? Fate of seditious conspiracy defendant in hands of the jury

It was 2020, a month or so before the presidential election. "Proud Boy" Joseph Randall Biggs was speaking with a News-Journal reporter and reflecting on how he would react if then-President Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.

In the interview, Biggs, now 39, said there were things he liked about Trump and things he didn't like. "If he loses, then so be it," he said. "I'm not gonna be out there (expletive) flipping out and acting like a child."

He lost. And today the former Volusia County resident faces more than 20 years in federal prison as he awaits a jury verdict in a trial where he is charged with seditious conspiracy and other crimes for his role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riots.

Who is Joe Biggs?

As jurors deliberate the fate of Biggs and four codefendants, here are some things the otherwise outspoken Army veteran has said about his life, the Proud Boys, and the 2020 election.

A North Carolina native, Biggs joined the Army Reserve in 2004 and served on active duty from 2007 until 2012, according to a U.S. Army spokesperson. (Biggs disputes having served in the reserves.) He served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving service as a staff sergeant. He received several honors.

He told the News-Journal that he earned a Purple Heart for "getting blown up" during his service.

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He said his transition to civilian life was rough; injuries to his foot and knee required rehabilitation.

In a YouTube video, Biggs described himself in the 2012 time frame: "I'm freshly coming out of the Army. I was depressed. I was drinking heavily, all day every day. I was suicidal and I was out of my mind."

Alex Jones 'saved my life'

While Biggs was in the Army, he met the late journalist Michael Hastings, who helped him get his start in media. Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist whose website and program Infowars got millions of monthly visits, saw Biggs on TV and invited him to appear on his show.

"I would come on and talk with (Jones) and eventually him and I became friends and he asked me to come to Austin and he kept offering me a job," Biggs told The News-Journal, "and I didn't really want to do it and eventually I said, '(expletive) it. Nobody wants to hire military guys anymore and this guy's willing to pay me.'"

He was with Infowars for nine years and three months, according to his still-accessible LinkedIn profile. He listed his job as an "investigative journalist."

In the YouTube video, Biggs said the Infowars job was a life-changing event.

"When Alex Jones hired me at Infowars, it saved my life," he said. "I turned my life around and picked my ass up and went out and started doing something. I saw that I had a reason to live."

Jones' was sued for making defamatory statements about the Sandy Hook shooting and plaintiffs were awarded $1.5 billion in damages. On December 2, 2022, he filed for personal bankruptcy.

On joining the Proud Boys

After he left Infowars, Biggs moved to a home co-owned by his mother in unincorporated Volusia County with an Ormond Beach mailing address. He was married and had a daughter, got divorced, and joined the Proud Boys, whose founder, Gavin MacInnes, hired Biggs to host his own show on the website Censored.TV.

Originally claiming the Proud Boys were a "drinking club" interested in "Western chauvinism," the group morphed into something more political and violent. The Proud Boys intervened in Black Lives Matter and gay-pride rallies around the country in 2020. Biggs responded to a News-Journal question about whether he's a white nationalist or that the Proud Boys are racist.

"I'm a nationalist, yes, as far as I have pride in my country," he said. "But the white thing, no, I don't give a (expletive) --- what your color is."

Biggs compared his time in the Army to the Proud Boys. "It's just like when you're in the military. You have a brotherhood. You have a bunch of guys you can depend on that will have your back and it's kind of nice having that."

Coming to Washington

Journalist Brandi Buchman, who covered the entire seditious conspiracy trial, reported in Emptywheel.net that Biggs shared text messages with co-defendant and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio in December 2020. It was the height of Trump's "Stop the Steal" conspiracy theory claims that led many Americans to believe the 2020 election was rigged.

“Let’s get radical and get real men,” Biggs wrote to Tarrio on Dec. 19, the same day Trump urged supporters to come to a rally in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, promising it "Will be wild."

Later, Biggs wrote: "No one looks at us from our side and sees a drinking club. They see men who stand up and fight. We need to portray a more masculine vibe.”

The following day, Biggs bought airline tickets to be in Washington from Jan. 5 to Jan. 7, Buchman reported.

On Jan. 6, Trump spoke at a large rally of supporters on the Ellipse urging them to march on the Capitol as Congress was certifying the results of November's presidential election. Biggs and a large contingent of Proud Boys had been moving toward the Capitol.

According to a federal indictment, Biggs, a co-defendant, and others in the crowd tore down a black metal fence between the crowd and police. Biggs and many others who had been led by Biggs and as well as a co-defendant then went past the trampled barrier and into the Capitol grounds west plaza.

Co-defendant Dominic Pezzola, of Philadelphia, used a riot shield he took from a police officer to smash the window in the Capitol and people started to enter. Biggs entered at 2:14 p.m. through an adjacent door with other Proud Boys.

After later exiting the Capitol, Biggs and several other Proud Boys members posed for a picture on the steps on the east side of the Capitol. Biggs took a video in which he said “We’ve taken the Capitol.”

In the jury's hands

Indicted on seditious conspiracy charges were Biggs, Tarrio, of Miami, the group’s former national chairman, Ethan Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, Zachary Rehl, of Philadelphia, and Pezzola. The seditious conspiracy charge alone could result in 20-year prison sentences for the men.

They were also hit with a number of charges including conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers. Pezzola is also charged with robbery for taking the shield.

After a more than three-month trial, prosecutors, in closing arguments, said the Proud Boys wanted to be "Donald Trump's army" and were "thirsting for violence and organizing for action” ahead of the Jan. 6 attack, according to news reports.

Biggs' lawyer, according to an NBC News report, said the defendants came to Washington because of Trump's tweet.

“‘Be there, it’s going to be wild,’ the commander-in-chief said. And so they did,” Norm Pattis told jurors, adding that “their commander-in-chief sold them a lie.”

The fate of Biggs and the others is now in the hands of a jury.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: What Proud Boy and seditious conspiracy defendant Joe Biggs has said