MIAMI VALLEY — Nearly two dozen people in the Miami Valley have been impacted by President Donald Trump’s sweeping Jan. 6 pardons.
There were at least 20 Jan. 6 defendants with Miami Valley ties.
Two of those people told News Center 7 they were expecting the pardons they got —others said they felt relieved.
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News Center 7′s John Bedell spent hours Wednesday driving from Centerville to Piqua, knocking on doors in neighborhoods in Dayton, and calling defense lawyers for Miami Valley Jan. 6 defendants.
News Center 7 spoke to Walter Messer over his video doorbell in Englewood.
He was on the road for work but said he was “expecting” his pardon.
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Messer said “it was a relief” when he learned about it from watching updates on the news.
A picture from federal court filings shows Messer inside the Capitol on January 6.
He pleaded guilty in June 2023 to a count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a capitol building.
He was sentenced to two years probation.
The FBI arrested Jan. 6 defendants in eight Miami Valley counties.
The most dramatic was the FBI’s search for Jessica Watkins.
An FBI SWAT team raided her apartment in Champaign County as neighbors watched.
The FBI said Watkins and Donovan Crowl, also from Champaign County, coordinated their attack on the Capitol along with Thomas Caldwell from Virginia.
All three got clemency from the president this week.
Federal prosecutors had previously said all three were part of a large, but loosely-organized militia group known as the Oath Keepers.
A judge sentenced Watkins to eight and a half years in prison.
But she’s now free after the president commuted her sentence this week.
Our news partners at WCPO-TV in Cincinnati talked to Sandra Parker of Warren County about her pardon.
“I just have lived under this cloud for so long. And all of a sudden it’s lifted ... you just don’t even know how to feel,” Parker said.
U.S. Department of Justice records News Center 7 reviewed Wednesday show at least 67 Ohioans were convicted or awaiting trial in Jan. 6th cases.
All of them were impacted by the clemency either by having their sentences commuted, getting a full pardon, or having their pending case dismissed with prejudice — meaning prosecutors cannot re-file charges in the future.
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