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Luke Wessley Bender

Pardoned January 6 defendant

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Luke Wessley Bender is a young man from Stafford, Virginia, who was 22 years old - barely out of high school - when the federal government charged him over January 6. Twenty-two. Think about that. Luke Bender was a kid from Stafford County, Virginia, the age of a college senior, when a federal felony case landed on him. (FACT - WRIC, WUSA9, DOJ.) He was identified in part after a former high school classmate sent the FBI a screenshot of his Instagram. (FACT - WUSA9.) That is how a lot of these cases started. Someone you sat next to in tenth grade. THE LEGAL FIGHT. Luke Bender was arrested July 29, 2021 and indicted August 4, 2021. He agreed to a stipulated bench trial - a process where both sides write down the facts they agree are true and hand them to a judge - and on December 7, 2022 he was found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding and five related misdemeanors. He was sentenced April 23, 2023 to 21 months. (FACT - DOJ defendant page and press release; WRIC; WUSA9.) On January 20, 2025, the January 6 clemency proclamation issued full pardons for offenses connected to the events at or near the Capitol. (FACT - White House proclamation.) Luke Wessley Bender lost his early twenties to this case. Those years do not come back, but the rest of his life is still in front of him. CASE RECORD. Case number 1:21-cr-508, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Arrested July 29, 2021. Indicted August 4, 2021. Convicted at stipulated trial December 7, 2022. Sentenced April 23, 2023. This profile is unclaimed. If this is you - or your family - claiming it is free, forever.