Convicted Child Sex Predator Avoids Prison Thanks to Trump Pardon

Taake was convicted of attacking a police officer at the Capitol with bear spray and a whip during the riots. He was also charged in Harris County, Texas, with sending explicit photos and messages to someone he thought was a 15-year-old girl, and he was out on bond when he took part in the riots. The “girl” Taake was communicating with on the dating site Plenty of Fish was an undercover police officer, and he didn’t stop messaging her after learning her age.

But thanks to the time he served on Jan. 6 before Trump’s pardon, most of which was on pretrial detention, Taake has accrued about three years and seven months of “credit” for his prior sex crimes, according to Harris County court documents. Taake was only convicted for his crimes at the Capitol last summer and, thanks to Trump’s blanket pardon, was released from the federal supermax prison ADX Florence in January, just months into his six-year sentence.

Taake was remanded in custody between his arrest and sentencing due to the violence of his crimes. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols called his role in the Capitol insurrection “the furthest thing from the expression of the First Amendment.” In his sentencing memorandum last year, prosecutors said Taake “did not show the slightest ounce of remorse for his actions, nor accept responsibility – going so far as to deny responsibility even after his guilty plea.”