A Keene, N.H., man who received a 90-day prison term for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol said Thursday that he’s declining the pardon that President Trump issued to him and some 1,500 other people.
Jason D. Riddle, 36, who chugged from a bottle of wine inside the Capitol and also stole a book on Senate procedure, said in a phone interview that taking the pardon would be tantamount to asserting that what happened that day was acceptable.
“I don’t think it is,’’ said Riddle, a server at a Concord, N.H., restaurant. “I don’t want it.’’
He said he’s a recovering alcoholic who did “stupid things’’ that day and got “involved with the wrong people.’’
“Those people are now running the government, that’s fine,’’ Riddle said, adding that he’s no longer a Trump supporter and voted for Kamala Harris in November. “Doesn’t make it right.’’
He said the only plus to a pardon would be his ability to fly without heightened scrutiny from TSA employees.
A criminal conviction remains on a defendant’s record even after a pardon, but a pardon frees the defendant from any remaining sentence and related penalties, according to the Office of the Pardon Attorney.
Riddle pleaded guilty in November 2021 to charges of theft of government property and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building. He was fined nearly $800, in addition to prison time.
While inside the Capitol, he found a liquor cabinet inside a lawmaker’s office and helped himself to some wine, according to court records. He also admitted to stealing a book titled “Senate Procedure,’’ which he sold for $40, according to an affidavit in his case.
In a March 2022 sentencing memorandum, prosecutors wrote that Riddle “sought to capitalize on his crimes by claiming that it would help him get elected to Congress.’’
He was not elected.
Prosecutors said Riddle “photographed the destruction in and around the Capitol and treated the chaos and disorder around him as an entertaining spectacle.’’
Prosecutors said Riddle “drank the wine while watching the destruction’’ and in a television interview days later said he did not “regret his action.’’
Riddle is also a veteran, making his conduct on Jan. 6 all the more troubling, prosecutors said. He served in the US Naval Reserves starting in February 2007, records show.
“He was honorably discharged from active-duty service in 2008,’’ prosecutors wrote. “In September 2009, Riddle was administratively separated due to certain physical or mental conditions. He also served with the Army Reserves until 2016.’’
Riddle’s federal public defender, Eric Wolpin, had said in court papers in March 2022 that his client is married with no previous criminal record.
His primary political affiliation at the time of the insurrection, Wolpin wrote, “was with a small, local, rural group of gay New Hampshire Republicans’’ that never advocated for violence.
“Beneath the bravado, charisma, and loudmouth is a man with a good heart,’’ Riddle’s husband, Bobby Schoen, wrote in a letter to the sentencing judge. “While this has been hard on him and us (hate mail, being accused of being a terrorist, and being given up on by friends and family alike) Jason has stayed strong and has grown to be a better person.’’
Pamela Hemphill, 71, of Boise, Idaho, told The New York Times on Wednesday that she is also not accepting a pardon, because accepting the gesture would be akin to “continuing their propaganda, their gaslighting and all their falsehoods they’re putting out there about Jan. 6.’’
“Now I know it was a cult, and I was in a cult,’’ she said.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.
