A pardon issued by President Donald Trump has allowed a confessed child sex offender to avoid additional prison time, a move legal experts are calling ethically problematic. Andrew Taake, 37, pleaded guilty in September to arranging a sexual encounter with someone he believed was a 15-year-old girl in 2016. But he won’t serve more prison time for that crime because of the time he already spent behind bars for attacking police during the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, time that no longer counts as punishment, since Trump’s sweeping pardon declared him “innocent” of any wrongdoing in that case.
Without the pardon, Taake would have served a six-year sentence for the riot before facing new time for the sex crime. Instead, his previous “innocent” time behind bars was credited toward his child exploitation charge. Federal prosecutors said Taake used bear spray and a metal whip to assault Capitol officers, later bragging about it to a woman he met on the dating app Bumble. That woman reported him to authorities, leading to his arrest and 2023 conviction. Trump has described the January 6 rioters he pardoned as “true patriots.”
