US Capitol rioter pardoned by President Trump found guilty of sexually abusing children

A Florida man pardoned by President Donald Trump for his involvement in the Jan. 6 US Capitol riot was found guilty on Tuesday of multiple child s£x abuse charges, according to prosecutors.

Andrew Paul Johnson was convicted by a Hernando County jury of five charges, including m0lesting a child under 12 and another child under 16, as well as for lewd and lascivious exhibition, NPR first reported.

Johnson was acquitted of one count of sending sexual material to a child in connection with the case, in which he was arrested in August, the outlet reported.

A police report obtained by NPR detailed Johnson’s s£xual abuse and molestation of children over a “many-month span.”

The mother of one of the children who was abused discovered that Johnson, who was described as her “ex-boyfriend,” had sent “inappropriate” messages on the gaming platform Discord to her young son, the police report said.

After asking her son about Johnson’s conduct, her son told her that Johnson had molested him three times “between April 1, 2024, and October 2024,” starting when he was 11 years old.

Johnson also coerced a victim to stay quiet about his abuse by claiming the Trump administration was paying him $10 million in restitution for being a former Jan. 6 defendant, and that he would keep the victim in his will to take any money he had left over, the report stated.

Some convicted Jan. 6 defendants have advocated for reparation payments, though none have been granted payouts thus far.

“This tactic was believed to be used to keep [redacted name] from exposing what Andrew had done to him,” the police report stated.

Johnson pleaded guilty to nonviolent charges in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, US Capitol riot and was sentenced to a year in prison in 2024, according to a sentencing memorandum.

Prosecutors recommended the sentence because “Johnson climbed over broken glass to enter the US Capitol building through an office window that had been smashed out,” as well as encouraged other rioters to join him in the office, the document said.

He also engaged in “disorderly and disruptive conduct” on US Capitol grounds for several hours before being nabbed by police.

The child sex abuser then spread false information about the Jan. 6 riot on social media and called for a second riot a year after his arrest, prosecutors alleged.

“[Johnson] violated his conditions of release on at least ten separate occasions; and has a long criminal history,” the memorandum said.

Johnson was one of roughly 1,500 defendants charged for their participation in the Jan. 6 riot that were pardoned by Trump early in his second presidential term.

He will be sentenced in March and “faces up to life in prison,” William Forgie, the chief assistant state attorney for the fifth judicial circuit in Florida, told NPR.