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Left: President Donald Trump delivers remarks during an event celebrating the 2024 Stanley Cup Champion, the Florida Panthers, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, February 3, 2025 (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images). Right: An alleged photo of Jeremy Brown at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack in 2021 (Justice Department).
A Jan. 6 defendant and Oath Keepers member from Florida who was linked to an explosives-filled RV allegedly brought to the Washington, D.C., area had several prior convictions — related to illegal firearms possession and U.S. Army grenades — officially vacated and dismissed by a federal judge on Wednesday in Florida, following President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 pardon order.
Jeremy Brown, a former U.S. Army Green Beret who had received a seven-year sentence for the weapons and grenades charges, received backing from Trump’s Justice Department in late February. Federal prosecutors informed U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday that, “based on consultation” with DOJ leadership, the position of the United States was that the offenses Brown was charged with — including possession of a modified AR-15 short-barreled rifle and a sawed-off shotgun, both unregistered and owned illegally — were “intended to be covered” under Trump’s pardon order.
Merryday, a George H.W. Bush appointee, agreed and on Wednesday vacated Brown’s convictions with an official order in the Middle District of Florida Tampa Division. The move came after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals relinquished jurisdiction in March to the district court to “consider and rule upon” the United States’ motion to vacate and dismiss the explosives and gun convictions against Brown, who was sentenced in 2023 and released from prison in February.
“The United States’ motion is granted, the judgment is vacated, and the second superseding indictment — and, derivatively, perforce the pardon, both the superseding indictment and the indictment — are dismissed with prejudice,” Merryday said. “The clerk must close the case.”
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For his Jan. 6 case, Brown was accused of “unlawfully and knowingly” entering and remaining in a restricted building and grounds at the U.S. Capitol, according to court documents. He was charged in Washington, D.C., federal court with misdemeanor trespassing and disorderly conduct, with photos showing Brown donning military gear.
In Florida, Brown was found guilty after a jury trial in December 2022 of possession of unregistered short-barreled firearms, possession of unregistered explosive grenades, improper storage of explosive grenades, and retention of classified information.
According to evidence presented at his trial, the FBI executed an arrest and search warrant at Brown’s residence in Tampa on Sept. 30, 2021, and found an unregistered AR-15-style rifle — modified to have a 10-inch barrel — in Brown’s bedroom. Agents also allegedly found the sawed-off shotgun on a couch inside of Brown’s recreational vehicle, which was parked near his home.
“Inside a briefcase next to the shotgun, agents found a classified Trip Report that Brown had authored shortly before he retired from the U.S. Special Forces,” prosecutors said in an April 2023 press release. “Inside the bedroom of that same RV, agents found an ammunition vest containing two M-67 fragmentation grenades hidden in the pockets. U.S. Army records confirmed that the grenades had originally been in the possession of the U.S. Army.”
Prosecutors didn’t provide a specific reason in their February notice of filing Brown’s certificate of pardon for why his weapons and explosives convictions were being thrown out, just that it was “based on consultation with Department of Justice leadership.”
Attempts by Law&Crime to reach the DOJ for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.
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