Andrew Paul Johnson was found guilty of five counts including molesting a child under 12 and another under 16
A man who took part in the6 January 2021 attackon the US Capitol and later pardoned byDonald Trumpwas found guilty on Tuesday of multiple child sexual abuse charges in Florida, officials said.
Andrew Paul Johnsonwasarrested in Tennesseethis August andextraditedto Florida. He pleaded not guilty.
Johnson was found guilty offive countsthis week, on charges such as molesting a child under 12 and another under 16, and lewd and lascivious exhibition, NPRfirst 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 aprobable cause affidavit.
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”.
Source: Drudge Report
