Fresh Take Florida
While President Donald Trump granted clemency last week to more than 1,500 people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, at least two Florida men who were among those defendants have yet to celebrate.
Jeremy Michael Brown, 50, of Tampa, who received a seven-year sentence for owning illegal weapons and possessing a military-classified document, was being held at an Atlanta federal prison with an expected release date in December 2027, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons. He was previously held without bond at a detention center in Leitchfield, Kentucky.
White House officials heard details of his case over the weekend, according to Carolyn Stewart, Brown’s attorney. She declined further comment. Prosecutors also declined to comment.
Brown’s mother, Lisa Brown, and girlfriend, Tylene Aldridge, did not return phone messages or emails.
Another Jan. 6 defendant, Daniel Charles Ball, 39, of Homosassa, who also hasn’t been released, now faces charges of possessing a gun and ammunition as a convicted felon. The charges were filed on Jan. 22, two days after Trump’s sweeping pardons.
Federal agents said they found the items after he was arrested in connection with the Capitol attack. Ball was awaiting trial on multiple charges related to the insurrection, including assaulting an officer, entering restricted grounds and using fire or an explosive to commit a felony. A judge dismissed those charges last week.
Amy Collins, Ball’s attorney, said Wednesday he was being transported from federal custody in Washington to Florida for a detention hearing on the gun case.
Ball and Brown are among a handful of Jan. 6 defendants who haven’t been released due to Trump’s sweeping action. A man from Georgia with ties to the insurrection also hasn’t yet been released because of a DUI charge from 2023, while a man in California is also being held after his conviction for illegally owning eight firearms, including an AR-15 rifle and more than 500 rounds of ammunition.
In 2007, Ball was found guilty of aggravated assault. Ball was also convicted in June 2017 of domestic battery by strangulation and October 2021 of battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting law enforcement with violence, as described in a federal indictment.
Eric Ball, Daniel Ball’s father, said guards at a prison in Petersburg, Virginia, hit and spit on his son upon arrival. He said the defendants’ family members considered mounting legal battles after release. “I’ve gotten to know loads of people in this advocacy movement, and parents and spouses of the hostages, we call them, they’ve gone through hell,” he said.
Per Daniel Ball’s request, he won’t be sent back to the Petersburg facility.
Brown’s case had drawn attention on social media from conservative pundit Lara Logan, the website whoisjeremybrown.com, and Cathi Chamberlain, Brown’s campaign manager, when he ran to represent Florida House District 62 in 2022.
“All of us who got our pardons are celebrating, and we’re joyous, but his situation is still a very hot topic going on,” said Paul Allard Hodgkins of Tampa, who served eight months in prison after he pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding. During the assault on the Capitol, he entered the building and walked onto the Senate floor holding a “Trump 2020” flag.
Brown, who previously served in the Army Special Forces, was arrested in September 2021 in Tampa on two charges related to the Capitol attack, entering restricted grounds and disruptive conduct, according to the Justice Department. He was identified by his military helmet, vest and radio. Later on Jan. 6, he wrote in a Signal chat that he was shot in the neck with pepper balls and hit in the forearm with a nightstick attempting to shield unprotected civilians, according to a statement of facts from the Justice Department.
In a home search the day of Brown’s arrest, federal agents said they found unregistered and modified weapons that violated federal law: a 10-inch barreled AR-15 rifle, a sawed-off shotgun, and two grenades. Agents also said they found a military report with classified information about a soldier who had been missing in Afghanistan. He was found guilty by a federal court jury in December 2022 and charged with possession of unregistered short-barrel firearms, possession of unregistered explosive grenades, improper storage of explosive grenades, and retention of classified information.
Among the Florida defendants released late last week were Olivia Michele Pollock, 34, and Joseph Hutchinson III. They were accused of assaulting law enforcement during the insurrection and were arrested in 2021. While awaiting trial in 2023, they removed the ankle monitors that tracked their location and fled. The two were found last year on a ranch in Groveland with Jonathan Daniel Pollock, Olivia Pollock’s 25-year-old brother who had been missing since his indictment over two years earlier related to the Capitol attack. His case was also dismissed last week.
On the family’s online donations page earlier this month, Olivia Pollock posted from prison about being captured by the FBI. “With the dew of the night seeping through my jeans to my knees, I didn’t know the next time I would have the chance to hug my brother’s neck or even speak to him.”
She said that her own government “had their guns trained on my chest and had labeled us terrorists, wanting to bury us in prison for something that every American should have the right to do; Protest a Wrong! And in our case, a Stolen Election.”
The family’s page has raised more than $8,000.
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Lauren Brensel and Diego Perdomo reporting; produced by Fresh Take Florida, a news service of the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications. The reporter can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]. You can donate to support our students here.
