Public January 6 profile · ready to claim

Kari Dawn Kelley

Pardoned January 6 defendant

Archive card · not a photograph

Kari Dawn Kelley is a single mother from Mobile, Alabama who worked insurance claims for a living and raised her son by herself. She was the only paycheck in that house. She was the only ride to school. She was it. FACT: Kari Dawn Kelley worked as an inside desk adjuster for Pilot Catastrophe, an insurance claims company, and her own sentencing filing states she maintained employment and provided a stable situation for her son. Source: defense sentencing memorandum, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. FACT: She earned an associate degree and was 16 credits short of a bachelor's degree at the University of Southern Mississippi when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005 and interrupted her schooling. Source: defense sentencing memorandum. FACT: Her parents divorced when she was three and her father raised her. He died in 2019. Source: defense sentencing memorandum. Sixteen credits. A storm. A father gone. And she still got up and went to work. THE LEGAL FIGHT FACT: Kari Dawn Kelley entered the U.S. Capitol at 2:56 p.m. and remained roughly ten minutes. Source: defense sentencing memorandum. FACT: Her sentencing memorandum states there was no violence and no property destruction. American Gulag's case summary likewise states there is no evidence of any violence committed by Kari. Source: defense sentencing memorandum; americangulag.org. FACT: She pleaded guilty on December 23, 2021 to one count of Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building, 40 U.S.C. 5104(e)(2)(G). That is a petty offense. Source: DOJ defendant record, case 1:21-cr-201. FACT: On March 17, 2022 she was sentenced to 36 months probation, $500 restitution, and a $10 special assessment. No prison. Source: DOJ defendant record; WKRG, Mobile. THEIR ACCOUNT: She wrote the court, in her own words, that there is not a day that goes by that I look at myself in the mirror and not embarrassed. That is not a woman hiding from the record. That is a woman standing in it. NEEDS AUTHENTICATION: Her own defense filing references an Alabama DUI and drug conviction, described as recent as of the March 2022 filing. The timing relative to January 6 is not clear from the document and we have not authenticated it against a court record. We publish it because the record gets published whole, not just the parts that flatter. Source: defense sentencing memorandum. FACT: On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued a proclamation granting pardons and commutation of sentences for offenses relating to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. Source: Federal Register, 90 FR 8331. THE CASE RECORD Name: Kari Dawn Kelley Hometown: Mobile, Alabama Occupation: insurance claims adjuster Case number: 1:21-cr-201 Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Docket: arrested 2/26/21, charged by criminal information 3/10/21, arraigned 3/18/21 and pleaded not guilty to all counts, pleaded guilty 12/23/21, sentenced 3/17/22 Sentence: 36 months probation, $500 restitution Clemency: January 20, 2025 WHAT THIS DOES NOT PROVE: Her guilty plea is in the record and stays in the record. WHAT IT DOES PROVE: Ten minutes inside. No violence charged. No property destroyed. A petty offense count. And a working single mother from Mobile, Alabama who kept a roof over her son's head the whole way through. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you, or your family, claiming it is free, forever.