Man pardoned by Trump for attacking US Capitol found guilty of child abuse

A man who took part in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol and later pardoned by Donald Trump was found guilty on Tuesday of multiple child sexual abuse charges in Florida, officials said.

Andrew Paul Johnson was arrested in Tennessee this August and extradited to Florida. He pleaded not guilty.

Johnson was found guilty of five counts this week, on charges such as molesting a child under 12 and another under 16, and lewd and lascivious exhibition, NPR first reported. A jury found him not guilty of one count of transmission of material harmful to a minor by electronic device or equipment.

The Guardian has contacted an attorney listed for Johnson.

“He is exposed to the possibility of life in prison,” said Walter Forgie, chief assistant state attorney for Florida’s fifth judicial circuit, of a possible sentence. “Sentencing will be at a later date.”

The Hernando county sheriff’s office received a report in July that “two juveniles had fallen victim to lewd and lascivious acts over a many-month span”, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Andrew Paul Johnson on 6 January 2021. Photograph: Department of Justice

This document claims that a mother of one of these children claimed she had discovered Johnson, her former boyfriend, who had lived with them, had sent “inappropriate” Discord missives to her son.

She asked her child about these messages and whether Johnson had “done or said anything inappropriate”, the probable cause affidavit says. Her son allegedly said that “between April 1 2024 and October 2024” Johnson had “molested him three times”, starting when he was aged 11.

The police document also claimed Johnson said “he was pardoned for storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and he was being awarded $10,000,000 as a result of being a ‘jan 6er’” and would put the boy “in his will to take any money he had left over”.

“This tactic was believed to be used to keep” the child “from exposing what Andrew had done to him”, police said.

Johnson was one of approximately 1,500 defendants charged for participation in the 6 January attack whom Trump granted clemency early in his presidential term.

Trump has publicly discussed compensating defendants prosecuted in related to the deadly attack, but none have received compensation thus far. Trump’s administration did agree to pay nearly $5m to the family of the woman who was shot dead by police during the siege, according to the Washington Post.

NBC News said Johnson called himself an “American Terrorist” and “Proud j6er”. Officials alleged that he engaged in “disorderly and disruptive conduct” for hours after “unlawfully entering the Capitol” through a window, and encouraged other rioters to follow him.

He pleaded guilty to January 6-related charges in April 2024. Johnson subsequently made a failed bid to withdraw this plea.