Proud Boys members convicted of assault for NYC brawl with Antifa
Two members of the far-right group Proud Boys were found guilty Monday of charges stemming from a brawl with anti-fascist protesters near a Republican club in Manhattan in 2018.
Maxwell Hare, 27, and John Kinsman, 39, were convicted of attempted gang assault, attempted assault and riot charges. A Manhattan Supreme Court jury deliberated for less than two days on the charges.
Hare and Kinsman will be sentenced Oct. 11. They face up to 15 years in prison for the attempted gang assault convictions.
"As violent extremism rises in America, a Manhattan jury has declared in one voice that New Yorkers will not tolerate mob violence in our own backyard," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement. "These defendants transformed a quiet, residential street into the site of a battle royal, kicking and beating four individuals in a brutal act of political violence."
The convictions come from a brawl that broke out near the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan's Upper East Side last October. The fight erupted after a talk by Gavin McInnes, a far-right commentator who founded the Proud Boys and also co-founded Vice Media. McInnes said a month after this event that he was disassociating himself from the Proud Boys.
Footage from the incident showed members of the Proud Boys and Antifa fighting a block away from the GOP club. Four Antifa members involved in the fight were never identified, but 10 Proud Boys members and associates were ultimately arrested and charged.
Lawyers for Hare and Kinsman argued that the two were fighting the Antifa members in self-defense.
The all-male Proud Boys call themselves "western chauvinists" and the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the organization as a hate group with anti-Muslim and misogynist views.