Pardoned MAGA rioter charged in Michigan for assaulting massage therapy client

A North Branch, Michigan man pardoned for his role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for allegedly assaulting a client during a massage session, The Oakland Press reported on Friday.

Nathan Thornsberry, 44, is accused of one felony count, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. The Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office says it happened Aug. 12 at a spa in Rochester Hills.

According to prosecutors, Thornsberry touched the woman’s intimate areas and penetrated her with a finger. She told him to stop, per the report, but he kept touching her as he pulled his hand away. The Oakland County Jail roster shows he was booked Oct. 29.

Prosecutor Karen McDonald said customers “have a right to expect to be treated professionally,” and that the defendant abused his position of trust.

Thornsberry, a Marine veteran, previously wrote and self-published a book about his account of the January 6 attack. He was charged in 2024 with felony civil disorder and resisting police, for allegedly joining an effort to knock down a police barricade at the Capitol during the mob effort to overturn the 2020 election results. President Donald Trump’s sweeping January 6 clemency order led to the dismissal of those charges.

He is not alone among the pardoned rioters for landing back in trouble; around 100 of them have since faced new charges, and some of those charges were also sex offenses. In one of the most dramatic cases, Andrew Paul Johnson of Florida was sentenced to life in prison for molesting two minors; he reportedly told one of the children he'd name them in his will to share any payout he'd get from the Trump administration to compensate him over the January 6 prosecution.