Pardoned Houston J6er Wanted for Soliciting Minor in 2016

A Houston man who was arrested and last week pardoned for assaulting police during the 2021 riots at the U.S. Capitol is facing local charges for solicitation of a minor online in 2016, the Houston Chronicle reported last week.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested Andrew Taake, now 36, in July of 2021 for assaulting law enforcement officers with a metal whip and bear spray during the Jan. 6, 2021 attempt by far-right protestors to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. He was turned in by a woman he matched with on a dating app.

In December of 2023, Taake pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon, the Chronicle reported. Last year, he was sentenced to six years in federal prison in Fort Worth.

But that changed last week. President Donald Trump on the campaign trail pledged to grant clemency to all people charged with crimes during the insurrection, and he made good on that promise just hours after being sworn in last Monday, pardoning the more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in that attack on democracy.

Now, Taake is wanted by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office for a charge of soliciting a minor online in 2016, a case that was still pending when he was arrested by federal agents.

At that time, when Taake was 27, he was accused of soliciting someone that he “believed to be younger than seventeen years of age” with the expectation of a sexual encounter, the Chronicle reported. That charge is a third-degree felony punishable by up to a decade in prison.

Without Trump’s “full, complete and unconditional pardon,” Taake would have been imprisoned until 2027 and would be under conditional release until 2030.