Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Shane Lamond’s communication with the former leader of the Proud Boys increased and grew more secretive as pressure to arrest him mounted in 2020, prosecutors said Tuesday. 

Lamond is accused of warning Enrique Tarrio, the group’s former national chair, that police were investigating whether he burned a stolen Black Lives Matter banner and later lied about their conversations. His trial began earlier this week, and Lamond has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Lamond’s communication with Tarrio primarily took place over iMessage before Dec. 12, 2020 — the day of the banner burning. But after that, Lamond took their conversations over to the encrypted chat service Telegram, where the two exchanged private and secret messages.

Private messages on Telegram are encrypted after they’re transmitted to a server, while secret messages are encrypted before, adding an additional layer of protection that blocks even Telegram itself from accessing those messages. 

Several of the secret messages between Lamond and Tarrio were set to self-destruct upon receipt. FBI agent Elizabeth Hadley, who testified about their exchanges, said 40 percent of the 209 secret Telegram messages between the men after Dec. 12 were not recovered. 

Starting after the 2020 election, Lamond repeatedly warned Tarrio that the right-wing extremist Proud Boys were “attracting attention” of law enforcement and “getting people spun up.” On Nov. 7, 2020, when the presidential race was called for President Biden, Lamond suggested switching to encrypted messaging. 

“Just giving you a heads up,” Lamond wrote to Tarrio in a Nov. 7, 2020, private chat on Telegram. “Please keep this between you and me.”

“Always,” Tarrio replied. 

Prosecutors also showed evidence that Lamond would switch between iMessage and Telegram when chatting with Tarrio, suggesting he saved conversations that were not passed along to his superiors for the more protected messaging format. 

However, defense attorneys noted that Lamond continuously provided law enforcement with updates about his communication with Tarrio throughout the duration of their source relationship, from October 2019 to January 2021.

Lamond forwarded information from Tarrio to several law enforcement officers in the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, U.S. Capitol Police, U.S. Secret Service and state police in Maryland and Virginia. Mark Schamel, one of Lamond’s attorneys, contended there was “no break” in passing along the intelligence he collected. 

“With the exception of those deleted messages,” Hadley interjected on cross-examination.

Several messages set to self-destruct involved details about law enforcement’s investigation into Tarrio, which led to his arrest on Jan. 4, 2021. 

Lamond told Tarrio he was asked to identify the Proud Boys leader and said it likely meant an arrest warrant was being prepared. When an arrest warrant was signed, he notified Tarrio — who was midflight on his way to D.C., already expecting to be arrested, prosecutors said. 

Tarrio is set to take the stand in Lamond’s defense as soon as Wednesday. Schamel, Lamond’s attorney, said the former Proud Boys national chair would be the defense’s first witness when the government rests its case. 

Tarrio is currently serving a 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. The ex-Proud Boys leader was not at the Capitol that day due to travel restrictions imposed by his arrest days earlier. 

Lamond and Tarrio communicated more than 600 times across multiple platforms throughout their source relationship, according to the government. During Tarrio’s Jan. 6 trial, his attorneys attempted to use their relationship as evidence the group was not engaged in criminal activity.

In opening statements of Lamond’s trial Monday, prosecutors accused the police officer of acting as a “double agent” for the far-right extremist group and giving them “real-time updates” on the investigation into Tarrio.

“This play-by-play information allowed the Proud Boys to be one step ahead of law enforcement,” prosecutor Joshua Rothstein said, according to The Associated Press. 

Lamond is charged with one count of obstructing justice and three counts of making false statements. He faces up to 30 years in prison for the obstruction charge and up to five years in prison for each false statement charge.

The police lieutenant was placed on administrative leave in February 2022.

Prosecutors are expected to rest their case Wednesday afternoon, at which point Tarrio is slated to take the stand.