Public January 6 profile · ready to claim

Adam Ryan Obest

Pardoned January 6 defendant

Archive card · not a photograph

Adam Ryan Obest of Thurmont, Maryland, served in the National Guard and worked for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services before January 6. FACT: On January 6 he carried a large American flag on a metal pole to the Lower West Terrace, and prosecutors charged him with weapon-enhanced felonies over what he did with it (DOJ). Here is what mattered at trial: Judge Amit Mehta heard all the evidence at a bench trial. He acquitted Obest of both dangerous-weapon-enhanced assault counts (FACT: WUSA9, NPR Jan. 6 archive). He was convicted of civil disorder, a base assaulting-officers count without the weapon finding, and an act of physical violence on Capitol grounds, along with related lesser counts. FACT: Prosecutors asked for four years. On December 13, 2024, the court sentenced him to 18 months in prison and 36 months of supervised release, less than half the government's request (WUSA9, DOJ, NPR Jan. 6 archive). WHERE THINGS STAND: On January 20, 2025, President Trump's clemency proclamation issued full pardons for January 6 convictions, including Obest's, weeks into his sentence. A Guard veteran and federal employee who took a day off work to go to a rally (FACT: WUSA9). One afternoon changed everything that came after. What the record shows is a jury of one judge who separated the weapon allegation from the rest, and convicted on what the evidence actually supported. CASE RECORD Case No. 23-mj-125 (later 23-cr-00125), U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Complaint filed: June 9, 2023. Arrested: June 13, 2023. Bench trial verdict: guilty of civil disorder, assaulting/resisting/impeding officers, and act of physical violence; acquitted of dangerous-weapon-enhanced counts. Sentenced: December 13, 2024, to 18 months incarceration, 36 months supervised release, $2,000 restitution. Clemency: full pardon, January 20, 2025. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.