WASHINGTON (AP) — A Florida handyman who was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison for molesting two children had been convicted of storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but was pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Andrew Paul Johnson, 45, is among several Jan. 6 defendants who have been charged with new crimes since Trump's sweeping act of clemency for Capitol rioters. On his first day back in the White House last year, Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of cases for all 1,500-plus people charged in the attack.
Johnson was convicted last month of two counts of lewd or lascivious molestation of a child and one count of electronically transmitting material harmful to a minor, according to prosecutors in Hernando County, Florida. County Circuit Judge Judge Stephen Toner handed down Johnson's life sentence.
Sheriff’s deputies began investigating the child molestation allegations against Johnson in July 2025. One of his victims told investigators that the abuse started around April 2024, several months before Johnson was sentenced for his Capitol riot conviction.
Johnson told one of his victims that he expected to be compensated for being a pardoned Jan. 6 defendant and would be putting the child in his will to inherit any leftover money, according a sheriff's office report.
“This tactic was believed to be used to keep (the child) from exposing what Andrew had done,” the report said.
Investigators found sexually explicit messages that Johnson exchanged with one of his victims on the Discord messaging app, according to Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Bill Gladson’s office.
"In the messages, Johnson attempted to have the victim download another application for a more private conversation and encouraged the victim to delete their messages afterwards," Gladson's office said in a news release.
Chief U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg in Washington sentenced Johnson in August 2024 to one year behind bars after he pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor charges stemming from the riot. Johnson had asked to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming that he was pressured into it, but the judge rejected his request before sentencing.
Johnson, of Seffner, Florida, was carrying a bullhorn as he marched to the Capitol after attending Trump's “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House. He entered the building through an office window that other rioters had smashed, according to federal prosecutors. Johnson cursed and yelled at police officers after they used tear gas to disperse the mob of Trump supporters, prosecutors said.
This image from video provided by the Department of Justice from police-worm body camera shows Andrew Paul Johnson on the Lower West Terrace of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (Department of Justice via AP)
President Donald Trump has fired his embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and says he’ll nominate in her place Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin.
Trump made the announcement on social media on Thursday, two days after Noem faced a grilling on Capitol Hill from GOP members as well as Democrats.
Trump says he’ll make Noem a “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas,” a new security initiative that he said would focus on the Western Hemisphere.
Noem is the first Cabinet secretary to leave during Trump’s second term. Noem’s departure caps a tumultuous tenure overseeing immigration enforcement tactics that have been met with protests and lawsuits.
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Noem made hers the face of immigration enforcement, often putting herself in the center of the action.
She sometimes dressed in a flack jacket and accompanied agents on immigration raids as cameras recorded, though she does not have a law enforcement background.
She also posed in front of a group of shirtless, tattooed men behind bars during a March visit to an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration sent people it accused of being gang members.
Noem spoke for more than 20 minutes, but didn’t mention her firing as she spoke to the Sergeant Benevolent Association Major Cities Conference in Nashville on Thursday.
Even when she began answering audience questions, no one mentioned it. Asked about future law enforcement grants, Noem seemed to suggest that she would continue to be on the job.
“I think your best options for funding alternatives would be through some grants that with the department, we have specific grants towards, terrorism grants,” she said at one point. “So maybe what I’ll do is I will forward those grant opportunities to all of you so that you can share them with your departments and have that opportunity.”
Mullin would take over the third largest department in government that has responsibility for carrying out Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda. And he takes the office at a pivotal time for that agenda.
Immigration enforcement during the first year of Trump’s administration was largely defined by high-profile, made-for-social-media operations with flashy names that were often led by Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who reported directly to Noem.
Noem herself often went out on those operations, riding along with officers when they went out to make arrests.
But those high-profile operations in places like Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis, often led to clashes with activists and protesters that were captured on video and drove opposition to the president’s immigration agenda.
That culminated with the shooting deaths in Minneapolis after which Trump sent in his border czar Tom Homan to take direct control of the operation in Minneapolis. Bovino was also reassigned.
Noem is the first Trump Cabinet member to be ousted from her post, but the president lining up a new job for her is actually part of a trend.
Trump announced that Noem will become a “Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas.” That’s a new security initiative that the president said would focus on the Western Hemisphere.
Former national security adviser Mike Waltz was nominated as United Nations ambassador after he mistakenly added a journalist to a Signal chat discussing military plans last year.
Trump also tapped IRS Commissioner Billy Long to be his ambassador to Iceland after Long contradicted the administration’s messaging in his less than two months in the job.
And Trump said in August that State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce would be deputy representative to the U.N. after leaving the State Department.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the oversight of the Department of Homeland Security, Wednesday, March 4, 2026 in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
