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California man imprisoned after Trump's Jan. 6 pardons in separate federal firearms case

BrieAnna J. Frank   Paste BN
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A California man was among the hundreds pardoned on Jan. 20 for their role in the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol – but he turned himself in for a federal prison sentence days later.

Benjamin Martin was arrested in September 2021 at his California home on charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. An FBI search of his home at the time of the arrest led to separate federal firearms charges.

Some social media users claimed President Donald Trump's pardon should absolve Martin in both cases. A Jan. 22 Threads post shared by 150 people said, in part:

“BREAKING: Judge Jennifer Thurston – Fresno – is refusing to honor Trump’s pardon, and has ordered J6er Benjamin Martin to jail tomorrow on bogus charges from the raid of his home.”

There has been no ruling or official statement that Martin's latest imprisonment runs contrary to Trump's pardon order. But a spokesperson for the court where Thurston presides said the cases are separate.

Martin’s imprisonment is “unrelated to any events that occurred at or near the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the case prosecuted in the District Court for the District of Columbia,” said Daniel Spohr-Grimes, a spokesperson for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.

A federal public defender for the court said officials will need time to determine whether Martin's prison time will be affected by the pardon, The Fresno Bee reported.

Trump issued pardons for more than 1,500 individuals charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on his first day in office, writing in his proclamation that the pardons would begin "a process of national reconciliation.”

The proclamation granted commutation of sentences for more than a dozen people and a “full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

Martin was among those pardoned by Trump. He was convicted in June 2024 on felony counts of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding, as well as numerous misdemeanor offenses. 

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But Martin turned himself in to authorities on Jan. 23 over his conviction on firearms crimes in September 2024, as reported by KMPH-TV in the Fresno, California, area. He was sentenced in November to three years and two months in prison for illegally possessing firearms and ammunition.

FBI personnel discovered eight firearms, high-capacity magazines and hundreds of rounds of ammunition during the 2001 search of his Madera, California, home in relation to the Capitol attack, according to the Justice Department. He was prohibited from possessing such items because of a prior domestic violence conviction, the department said.

The firearms case was prosecuted in California, and the Capitol attack trial took place in Washington.

Paste BN has debunked an array of claims related to Trump’s first week in office, including false assertions that Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, “will have her citizenship revoked” under Trump’s immigration plan and that one of Trump’s executive orders cut federal funding for cities that “promote, support or otherwise encourage LGBTQ activism.”

Paste BN reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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