A man pardoned by President Donald Trump for storming the Capitol was arrested on child molestation charges, according to Florida officials, who said he tried to use an anticipated Jan. 6 payout to silence the victim.
Andrew Paul Johnson, 44, was arrested in Tennessee in August and extradited to Florida on charges of lewd/lascivious molestation, lewd/lascivious exhibition and transmission of material harmful to a minor.
His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
The Intercept first reported the charges.
Johnson was among the roughly 1,500 people Trump pardoned this year in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The Hernando County Sheriff’s Office began investigating him in July after it received a call about two juveniles who had allegedly fallen victim "to lewd and lascivious acts over a many-month span," according to an arrest affidavit.
Deputies spoke to the victim's mother, who said she was going through her son's messages on Discord and found an "inappropriate" conversation involving Johnson, the affidavit says. She asked her son about the messages and asked whether Johnson had ever said or done anything inappropriate, it says.
The child said Johnson molested him three times from April to October 2024, beginning when he was 11 years old, according to the affidavit.
The child said he confronted Johnson, who apologized and told the child not to tell anyone "since he would get in trouble," the affidavit says. Johnson mailed the child an iPhone "and told him to keep it a secret," the document alleges.
The sheriff's office said in the affidavit that Discord messages showed Johnson sneaking to the child's home to take him food and hang out with him. He also told the child that "since he was pardoned for storming the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and he was being awarded $10,000,000 as a result of being a ‘jan 6’er’ ... that he would be putting him in his ‘will’ to take any money he had left over," according to the affidavit.
"This tactic was believed to be used to keep [the victim] from exposing what Andrew had done to him," the affidavit says.
Trump has discussed the possibility of compensating Jan. 6 rioters, but no one has received any payments. In May, the administration reached a settlement of just under $5 million with Ashli Babbitt’s family. An officer fatally shot her during the riot as she tried to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby.
Johnson was arrested in 2022 and faced four charges in connection with the Jan. 6 riot after, the Justice Department said, he breached the building through a broken window.
Court documents from that case said Johnson, who referred to himself as "American Terrorist" and "Proud j6er," engaged in "disorderly and disruptive conduct" for more than four hours.
The documents said that after he breached the Capitol, he encouraged other rioters to follow and yelled: "We haven’t accomplished anything here. This door is still closed. We haven’t accomplished anything yet. ... We need to go through that f---ing door. We’re not done yet. We’re not just breaking and entering."
He also spread false theories about the riot and called for another attack, according to the documents. He pleaded guilty in April 2024 and was pardoned.
Johnson is due back in court Dec. 10 on the child molestation charges.
Another Jan. 6 defendant Trump pardoned, who was seen firing a gun into the air outside the Capitol, was recently arrested on kidnapping and sexual assault charges, and another Capitol rioter pardoned by Trump was arrested and accused of making death threats against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
