A ringleader of the violent neofascist and racist group, the Proud Boys, asked for release from a D.C. jail on Monday, begging the court to let him serve out the remainder of his five-month sentence at home because of alleged harassment and conditions he claims are inhumane.

Henry “Enrique” Tarrio made the request to Judge Jonathan Pittman during a remote hearing at the D.C. Superior Court. Tarrio, originally from Miami, Florida, is currently serving a five-month sentence for two counts: destruction of property, and attempted possession of a large capacity firearm magazine. So far, he has served just 70 days of his sentence.

“I’ve been in jail before, but what I’ve seen here, I’ve never seen before. It’s insane. It’s a gulag,” Tarrio told the judge on Monday. “This place needs to be shut down immediately.”

On Dec. 12, Tarrio arrived in Washington, D.C. with a mass of fellow Proud Boys and other devotees of Donald Trump to support the former president’s bogus and widely debunked claims to victory in the 2020 election. What followed was a day of bloody clashes between Proud Boys, the president’s supporters, counterprotesters, and activists for the Black Lives Matter movement. Four people were stabbed, 33 were arrested and nine were hospitalized, including two police officers who suffered nonfatal injuries.

Tarrio took a public tour of the White House that day, before stealing the Black Lives Matter banner from the Asbury United Methodist Church and setting it ablaze. According to the Washington Post, a victim impact statement delivered at Tarrio’s sentencing this August highlighted how Tarrio’s racist vandalism was especially painful for older members of the church’s congregation—many of whom are Black—and are “direct descendants of individuals who traveled north during the Great Migration,” a period when millions of Black people fled the choking oppression of the South.

A warrant was ultimately issued for Tarrio’s arrest after the banner burning. On Jan. 4, just two days before the insurrection at the Capitol, he was stopped by D.C. police after arriving at an area airport and heading downtown. During the stop, police found two high-capacity rifle magazines, both of which were empty but could hold 60 rounds each. Tarrio told police he bought the magazines online and planned on giving them to a person who was in D.C. to attend the pro-Trump march on Jan. 6.

Tarrio ultimately struck a plea bargain, managing to get one of the felony possession charges dropped altogether and the other felony possession charge downgraded to a misdemeanor.

On Monday, Tarrio alleged he was regularly subjected to cruel conditions at the Central Detention Facility in Washington. His cell, he claimed, is regularly flooded with filthy water pouring in from a neighboring cell’s toilet and the halls are rife with smoke from inmates burning toilet paper.

“There are feces in my room right now,” Tarrio said during Monday’s hearing. “I have to clean other people’s feces off the ground with my own toilet paper.”

The chauvinist group’s leader also complained of shoddy medical care and poor food, and abuse from corrections staff.

“I’m deathly afraid that something is going to happen to me,” Tarrio said.

Tarrio has filed no less than three separate complaints about the conditions of the facility, prompting a U.S. prosecutor to say on Monday that the Miami native had “abused the grievance process.” Prosecutors also said the flooding of Tarrio’s cell was because a prisoner in a nearby cell was doing it in protest. Tarrio had already been moved to another cell by the time he appeared in court Monday.  

Tarrio’s attorney Lucas Danise alleges the Proud Boy is being “intimidated and antagonized by correctional staff” specifically so he will not complain about conditions.

Grievances about conditions inside the jail are not unique.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, held the director of the D.C. Department of Corrections and the D.C. jail’s warden in contempt of court and ordered the Department of Justice to investigate claims of civil rights abuses.

Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Marshals Service struck a deal on Oct. 13 to improve conditions. Notably, the contempt finding was prompted after a surprise inspection occurred in the wake of a complaint from Christopher Worrell, a Proud Boy who authorities allege assaulted police officers with pepper spray during the melee at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Worrell claimed he was delayed medical care after injuries to his hand and wrist.

Worrell, who has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, entered a not guilty plea in April to five charges associated with the assault on the Capitol. He had been incarcerated from March until his release in November.

Prosecutors insisted late last month that Worrell’s claims of medical mistreatment at the facility are false, citing a statement from Worrell’s orthopedic specialist that a requested surgery for his hand was not urgent or medically necessary, but rather, an elective procedure.

On Nov. 4, Judge Lamberth released Worrell so he could receive cancer treatments. Worrell was released just a few days after the U.S. Marshal Service had agreed to transfer 400 federal prisoners to another facility due to poor conditions at the jail.

During Tarrio’s hearing Monday, Judge Pittman said it was “obviously distressing” to hear of the conditions alleged by Tarrio but it begged a question of its own.

“How is Mr. Tarrio’s condition different than any other inmate at the jail?” Pittman said, suggesting that the Proud Boy ringleader wasn’t being specifically targeted for bad treatment at the jail.

Notably, Tarrio’s assertions Monday are a significant departure from his statements online in the early days of his incarceration.

“I kinda like prison. Don’t tell the guards though. If they think I’m enjoying myself, they’ll find ways to punish me,” Tarrio wrote on his Telegram account. “Someone send me an Xbox X and we can play warzone.”

Pittman is expected to rule by the end of this week on whether Tarrio’s sentence should be shortened to the requested 90 days.