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Daniel Edwin Wilson is seen in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (U.S. Attorney’s Office).
A pardoned Jan. 6 defendant from Kentucky is going back to prison to serve out his term for separate firearms convictions after he had been erroneously released from custody.
Dan Edwin Wilson, 49, was ordered on Friday to self-surrender to federal authorities to serve the remaining time of his 60-month — or five-year — sentence.
U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Donald Trump appointee, rejected his claim that the President’s pardon for his charge of conspiracy to impede or injure an officer at the Capitol also covered his separate convictions in Kentucky for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of an unregistered firearm.
Like many other rioters, the defendant posted messages online about what he wanted to do in Washington, D.C., in the days leading up to Jan. 6.
“I am ready to lay my life on the line,” Wilson declared on Dec. 27 in the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
“We are willing to work and coordinate with others, but I am a gray ghost ranger,” he wrote, referring to his affiliation with the so-called “Gray Ghost Militia.”
Wilson entered the Capitol that day wearing a gas mask and walked through the Rotunda and Statuary Hall before exiting at 2:49 p.m. He was inside for just over 10 minutes. He was arrested on May 25, 2023, almost a year after the federal search warrant was executed on his home.
On June 3, 2022, law enforcement seized six firearms stored in a backpack and cabinet in Wilson’s home, including some that were covered by clothing.
“Wilson was prohibited from possessing firearms at the time, due to previous felony convictions,” the probable cause affidavit notes. “At least two of the seized firearms were loaded at the time of seizure, and another two did not have serial numbers.”
The firearm charges were initially filed in Kentucky federal court but were later transferred to the District of Columbia, the FBI says.
Wilson was sentenced on Aug. 28, 2024.
Around Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, when Trump issued his Executive Order granting pardons to Jan. 6 defendants, Wilson was erroneously released from prison, authorities said.
Then, he was ordered to return to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, and his defense counsel filed a motion to stay his return, which the government did not oppose.
“The government has reviewed the Certificate of Pardon, which was provided to the defendant by the Office of the Pardon Attorney on or about January 29, 2025,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. “The Certificate makes clear that the pardon only applies to ‘convictions for offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.’”
The firearm convictions, they added, “did not occur at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, and thus, by the plain language of the certificate, the pardon does not extend to these convictions. The defendant should be returned to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.”
