J6 political hostages, who are finally doing bids in prison after being held in pretrial detention for nearly three years, are being tortured while incarcerated.
Earlier this week, this reporter received a phone call from my friend Joseph Biggs, a former Army Staff Sergeant who received two purple hearts in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, a former InfoWars reporter and former leader of the Proud Boys, who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Biggs is now housed in FCI Talladega, a medium security federal correctional institution in Talladega, Alabama prison, where he will be incarcerated for over a decade unless he wins an appeal in three years or receives a pardon.
He explained in extensive detail what he has endured since we last spoke during visitation in the DC gulag in late September, two days before being transferred to a Philadephia holding jail.
But reporting on the abuse and torture Biggs described could put him in more danger.
Before detainment in Alabama, Biggs and his co-defendants Zachary Rehl, Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, and Dominic Pezzolla were held in the Philadelphia jail for nearly two months. The frequent interviews with the media likely prompted their move from DC to Philadelphia. Rehl told Us they were “packed like sardines” in Philly and had to wait in line for hours to send an email or make the one fifteen-minute phone call they were permitted daily.
Right before they were moved from DC, correctional officers were hunting down inmates in the patriot pod to test them for COVID and throwing them in solitary confinement in the filthy hole to “quarantine.” At least in the DC gulag, J6ers are afforded a tablet to send text messages and watch movies frequently and they are detained with other January 6 defendants, typically nonviolent offenders with no criminal history prior to January 6th.
As they geared up for the transfer to prison, we assumed restrictions around what they publicly disclose about their situation may finally ease up.
During the trial and before sentencing, they risked being penalized by the government for speaking to the media.
With trial and sentencing behind them, we discussed potentially hosting a weekly podcast from prison or writing a book to continue to shine a light on the corrupt BOP.
Now in prison, they are housed with serial killers, murderers, rapists, pedophiles and fear they might get killed.
It has become increasingly evident speaking out while in federal custody could result in severe retaliation by jail guards or other inmates.
Pezzola’s mother told US earlier this month that her son was being tortured, barred from communication, and starved. She said she was concerned Pezzola was designated as a terrorist within the Bureau of Prisons system. She said guards warned Pezzola he would remain locked in the hole and tortured for exclaiming, “Trump won, and everybody knows it” in court moments after he was sentenced.
Biggs has not spoken to his lawyers for months to address concerns about what he can or cannot safely publicly discuss.
In an email to this reporter, Biggs asked for books to maintain his sanity amid the hellish conditions.
“I want to read Behold A Pale Horse by William Cooper and a book called Trust Me I’m Lying. If you could send me those, it would be much appreciated. This place is not good. It’s full of … sex offenders and child molesters. I think the government is sending us to these places so we fuck up and get in trouble,” Biggs wrote. “I’m just going to read and stay to myself. People keep committing suicide here.
“I’ll survive, though. I just need some books and my property to come in from Philly and I will be good. Please send letters.”
Please send letters of support and books to Biggs at the following address:
JOSEPH BIGGS 26257-509
FCI Talladega
P.M.B. 1000
Talladega, AL 36160
On January 6, 2021, Biggs walked around the Capitol building for approximately 20 minutes after dodging bullets and flash-bang grenades police indiscriminately fired at the crowd. He committed no violent crimes during the riot. Still, the government secured a conviction against Biggs and his co-defendants with unsubstantiated allegations that they committed sedition by conspiring to overthrow the US government.
Defense attorney Metcalf, Pezzola’s lawyer suspects Judge Kelly, in tandem with the government, deliberately designated the Proud Boys terrorists to assure the BOP subjects them to harsher conditions than the murderers and rapists while incarcerated.
“The terror enhancements Judge [Timothy] Kelly added to their sentences is certainly a major factor in how the BOP assesses these defendants,” Metcalf, Pezzola’s lawyer, told us in an exclusive interview.
“Why do you think they got those classifications? To everybody else, the terrorist label means nothing,” he said, “but for the people inside those facilities, this means everything –everything they need to justify whatever abuses they are doing to them.”
The BOP can withhold communications from inmates for months at a time unchecked and basically do “whatever they want” to inmates without attorney intervention when they make it impossible for them to stay in communication with the outside world.
“I have not been able to speak to Dominic since he’s been moved,” Metcalf said. “I don’t even think his wife has been able to speak to him since he’s been moved. They keep it in the dark when you get placed, or they can be lackadaisical about it. I have other clients in federal prison who this has happened to. It’s, unfortunately, too common.
When you’re sentenced, and you’re a federally sentenced inmate, if you go to anything above a low facility, a medium or max, wherever you are designated, they can make your life miserable. They can allow you to speak to who they want to let you speak to.
“They can put limitations on people being able to pay for anything on your behalf. They can give you literally one phone call a month — one phone call for 30 minutes per month is what you can get. This happens to people all the time who were sentenced the way that these guys got sentenced.”
Metcalf warns that interviews from the jail could subject them to an even more dangerous situation.
“It can even get worse,” he said. “If they believe that the information that you are obtaining — that he’s talking to you and feeding you with the information, they could gag him from even speaking to reporters. They could shut down his phone. You have no idea the extent that they can do.”
Infowars host Owen Shroyer, who was sentenced to 60 days in prison, spent the first ten days of his sentence at the Oakdale, Louisana prison in quarantine in adherence with the BOPs Covid regulations.
On a phone call from prison, Shroyer recorded a message updating his supporters on his well-being after enduring the time in the hole. He was subsequently penalized for the recording and thrown back in solitary confinement.
On Wednesday, an excerpt from a letter Shroyer wrote from prison on Nov. 9 was published on his X account.
“I no longer have any access to the outside world. I’m in lockdown all day. I only get out for 15 minutes to shower on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I get my mail and some books, but that’s it. All the mail is very important and special to me at this point. I hope it keeps coming,” Shroyer wrote. “I have finished 4 books and I am halfway finished with the Bible.”
“A prisoner of war in my own country, locked up and tortured for my speech. In prison for my speech, then in prison inside a prison for my speech. The starving days and sleepless nights continue.”
Shroyer will be released from prison in 20 days. The others must tread carefully as they face over a decade of incarceration.
Once given the green light by Pattis, We will proceed with publishing Biggs’ interviews from prison.
Jonathon Mosely, a paralegal working full-time on January 6 litigation and former J6 defense attorney, contends the Bureau of Prisons does “not have authority to bar inmates from communication, but they are doing it, and someone needs to challenge it.”
“[Oather Keeper founder] Stewart Rhodes conducted an interview in a three-way call, and they suspended Rhode’s phone privileges for three months. That is unconstitutional. To restrict someone’s First Amendment rights, the government has to show compelling state interests. If what they discuss poses no security risk to the prison or the safety of the jail — if they are not calling for a riot, arranging a prison break, hiring someone to kill a witness or anything like that — it is unconstitutional for them to restrict their ability to talk to the media.
“What they are doing is illegal, and members of Congress should be all over it. They are violating the law, and the government doesn’t believe in law. They do whatever they want and only use the law to attack everyday people. If one is overly worried about how the system is going to respond, the best way is for their attorneys to raise it by a motion.”
“The court will say, ‘The BOP doesn’t work for me; I have no authority over it.’ That’s bullshit.”
Mosely revealed that Judge Royce Lamberth’s orders prompted reform in the DC gulag, Washington DC Correctional Treatment Facility, and the resignation of the jail’s warden.
“Lamberth issued an order declaring the DC prison to be unhealthy and in contempt of the court, warning they were denying medical treatment,” he said. “These federal district judges are making nationwide injunctions on many issues; of course, they stop the abuse by the BOP. Lamberth’s ruling is a precedent.”
Please send letters of support and books to Biggs at the following address:
